The sky is falling - We need a police state!!!!
Obama administration authorizes drone strikes in Yemen
SourceObama administration authorized recent drone strikes in Yemen
By Greg Miller, Anne Gearan and Sudarsan Raghavan, Published: August 6 | Updated: Wednesday, August 7, 6:51 AM
The Obama administration authorized a series of drone strikes in Yemen over the past 10 days as part of an effort to disrupt an al-Qaeda terrorism plot that has forced the closure of American embassies around the world, U.S. officials said.
The officials said the revived drone campaign — with five strikes in rapid succession — is directly related to intelligence indicating that al-Qaeda’s leader has urged the group’s Yemen affiliate to attack Western targets.
The strikes have ended a period in which U.S. drone activity in the Arabian Peninsula has been relatively rare, with a seven-week stretch with no strikes. The latest strike, in southern Yemen on Wednesday, killed seven alleged militants, the Associated Press reported. A strike on Tuesday reportedly killed four militants in the impoverished nation’s Marib province, a Yemeni security official said.
Although the BBC reported Wednesday that the terror plot had been disrupted,citing statements by Yemeni government officials, U.S. intelligence officials remain skeptical that the danger has passed. One intelligence official said the plot as described by the Yemenis — involving blowing up pipelines and taking over oil and gas facilities — may have been only one component of a broader plan to hit Western targets.
Officials said Tuesday there is no indication that senior al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen have been killed in the drone strikes.
“It’s too early to tell whether we’ve actually disrupted anything,” a senior U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. The official described the renewed air assault as part of a coordinated response to intelligence that has alarmed counterterrorism officials but lacks specific details about what al-Qaeda may target or when.
“What the U.S. government is trying to do here is to buy time,” the official added.
The State Department underlined that approach on Tuesday, announcing that it had ordered the evacuation of much of the U.S. Embassy in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa and urged all Americans to leave the country immediately.
In a global travel alert, the State Department said that all non-emergency U.S. government personnel would be removed “due to the continued potential for terrorist attacks.” It described an “extremely high” security threat level in Yemen.
Yemen is the home base of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the branch of the terrorist group thought to be the most likely to attack U.S. or Western interests. The U.S. Embassy in Yemen was among 19 that were closed through Saturday, as were embassies in Yemen representing several European nations. The British Embassy said Tuesday that it had removed its staff.
The State Department’s decision drew a sharp rebuke from the Yemeni government, which said the evacuation “serves the interests of the extremists and undermines the exceptional cooperation between Yemen and the international alliance against terrorism.”
“Yemen has taken all necessary precautions to ensure the safety and security of foreign missions in the capital,” the Yemeni Embassy in Washington said in a statement.
State Department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki took issue with Yemen’s assertion that the U.S. move rewards terrorists and said the decision to remove Americans from the country for safety reasons speaks for itself.
At the same time, jihadists took to Web forums to celebrate the closure of the embassies, with some boasting that doing so was a “nightmare” for the United States, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, a nonprofit organization that monitors the forums.
The burst of drone activity provides new insight into the Obama administration’s approach to counterterrorism operations. U.S. officials said the CIA and the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command, which operate parallel drone campaigns in Yemen, have refrained from launching missiles for several months in part because of more restrictive targeting guidelines imposed by President Obama this year. Those new rules, however, allow for strikes to resume in response to an elevated threat.
“They have been holding fire,” said a U.S. official with access to information about the al-Qaeda threat and the drone campaign. But intercepted communications between al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who is believed to be in Pakistan, and his counterpart in Yemen, Nasir al-Wuhayshi, have raised concern that the network is preparing an assault on Western targets.
“The chatter is coming from Yemen,” the official said. Embassies outside the region were closed not because they were specifically mentioned but because in Yemen and other countries, they would be prominent targets.
A few dozen U.S. Special Operations forces have been stationed in Yemen since last year to train Yemeni counterterrorism forces and to help pinpoint targets for airstrikes against al-Qaeda targets in the country. The U.S. military carries out drone strikes in Yemen from its base in Djibouti, while the CIA flies armed drones from a separate base in Saudi Arabia.
The CIA and the U.S. military have carried out 16 drone strikes in Yemen this year, according to the New America Foundation, which monitors the drone campaign. Last year, a record 54 strikes occurred.
The Pentagon said it will keep an undisclosed number of military personnel in Yemen to support the U.S. Embassy “and monitor the security situation.” U.S. military officials did not specify how many Americans were flown out of Yemen or where they were taken.
Residents in the capital reported seeing and hearing a low-flying aircraft that many believed to be a U.S. drone or some form of surveillance plane.
Raghavan reported from Nairobi. Craig Whitlock at Fort Bragg, N.C., Julie Tate in Washington and Ali Almujahed in Sanaa, Yemen, contributed to this report.
FBI hacking squad used in domestic investigations
FBI - F*ck the 4th Amendment, I got a gun and a badge and can do anything I want!!!!FBI hacking squad used in domestic investigations, experts say
Suzanne Choney NBC News
The FBI is using its own hacking programs for installing malware and spyware on the computers of suspected terrorists or child pornographers, a tactic that is drawing attention in the wake of disclosures about the domestic online surveillance of Americans.
Among the programs is one known by various names, including the Remote Operations Unit and Remote Assistance Team, which uses private contractors to do the actual hacking of suspects. The contractors can send a virus, worm or other malware to a suspect's computer, giving law enforcement control of a wide range of activities, from turning a computer's webcam on and off to searching for documents on the machine, says Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist for the ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project.
"In the last few years the FBI has created a team that has solely focused on delivering what we call malware — viruses and worms — to people's computers to get control of them," he told NBC News.
The FBI was contacted Monday by NBC News for comment, but has not yet responded. If we hear back, we will update this story. The agency, believed to be behind a recent large-scale malware attack, declined to comment to the Wall Street Journal about the hacking issue. Meanwhile, CNET reports that the FBI has reportedly developed software to help intercept "metadata" — information like the websites visited and email addressed used by an individual — and it wants Internet providers to allow the agency to install the software, but is meeting with resistance.
Mark Rasch, former head of the Department of Justice's Computer Crimes Unit who has worked with the FBI in the past, said the existence of the hacking team is well-known, and that there are other similar teams, coordinating with private contractors.
"There's a whole bunch of groups in the FBI that do this," Rasch, now an independent consultant, told NBC News. "There's one that interfaces with telephone companies, another with Internet providers. These guys make 'critters' — malware, a bug, virus, a worm — that can infect the computer, the cellphone ... any kind of communication device."
However, he said, the FBI is obtaining court-approved warrants or wiretap orders to do the surveillance.
"If I'm going to turn on your camera on your laptop, I'm going to need to go through the same legal process that I would need in order to install a camera in your house," he said. "There are exceptions to the warrant requirement, but I would be surprised if they were doing this without a warrant or some kind of legal process."
Soghoian said he is not so sure that is the case. "We don't know much about what legal standards they follow," he said.
Earlier this year, he said, "we learned that the FBI had gone to a federal magistrate in Texas to ask for a warrant authorizing the delivery of malware that would take over a target's webcam, and download files from their computer. That judge said no, because he believed that covert webcam use required a wiretap order not just a warrant. The judge was also concerned that the government hadn't identified how it would make sure that only the court-approved target of the surveillance would be spied on, and not anyone else."
Alan Butler, appellate advocacy counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told NBC News that while the "government's access to hacking tools has been known for some time," until recently it "was not clear that they were being used in domestic criminal investigations."
"I don't think it is clear that a warrant or judicial order is sufficient to support the use of intrusive hacking tools," he said in an email. "These tools can cause damage to hardware and software, and allow the monitoring of personal communications and even audio-visual surveillance surrounding electronic device."
Butler believes the FBI's "authority to use these hacking tools has not been clearly established, and there should be a public review of the legality of this program."
Soghoian agrees. "What I'm focused on is that we haven't had a proper debate on this. There was no law giving the FBI authority to do this."
Rasch says the "real problem isn't the FBI or the law; it's technology," and the nature of malware, or "critters" that are "hard to control."
Malware does not discern who is using a device and the innocent may wind up getting hurt, or having their privacy invaded as collateral damage in cyber-spying.
"It's hard for me to write a virus that will only capture your actions on a computer without also capturing your kids using it to do their homework or your daughter getting undressed in front of a Web camera," he said.
Check out Technology and TODAY Tech on Facebook, and on Twitter, follow Suzanne Choney.
FBI informants authorized to break the law 5,600 times
More of the old "Do as I say, not as I do" from our government masters.Licensed criminals: FBI informants authorized to break the law 5,600 times in one year
Published time: August 05, 2013 00:55
Edited time: August 06, 2013 09:30
In at least 5,658 cases in a single year alone, the FBI authorized its informants to commit crimes varying from selling drugs to plotting robberies, according to a copy of an FBI report obtained by USA Today.
After much redacting by the authorities, the watered-down FBI's 2011 report obtained under the Freedom of Information Act has revealed that agents had been authorizing 15 crimes a day on average, in order to get the necessary information from their informants.
The document does not indicate the severity of the crimes authorized by the agency, nor does it include material about violations that were committed without the government's permission. It just sites a number of 5,658 Tier I and II infractions committed by criminals to help the bureau battle crime.
According to the Department of Justice Tier I is the most severe and includes “any activity that would constitute a misdemeanour or felony under federal, state, or local law if engaged in by a person acting without authorization and that involves the commission or the significant risk of the commission of certain offenses, including acts of violence; corrupt conduct by senior federal, state, or local public officials; or the manufacture, importing, exporting, possession, or trafficking in controlled substances of certain quantities.”
The Tier II includes the same range of crimes but committed by informants acting without authorization from a federal prosecutor but only from their senior field manager in FBI.
In the past, the newspaper revealed, the violations ranged from drug dealing to bribery.
As an example of severe crime committed by an authorized informant, the newspaper references the case of James Bulger, a mobster in Boston who was allowed by the Federal government to run a gang ring in exchange for insider information about the Mafia. Since then, the US Justice Department ordered the FBI to track and record the wrongdoings of the informants, results of which are due annually.
The FBI remains secretive about its informants. It is known that in 2007, the FBI estimated that around 15,000 confidential sources were employed by the bureau.
The Justice Department has requirements in place which spell out the rules of engagement with informants and “otherwise illegal activity.” Authorization of violent crimes are not allowed by field agents and serious offenses must first be approved by federal prosecutors. But as the publication notes, the FBI’s Inspector General concluded in 2005 that the agency routinely failed to abide by those rules.
The FBI’s scheme to gather information using such methods is believed to be only the tip of the iceberg as other local, state and federal agencies also reportedly engage in similar practices. The FBI’s share of criminal prosecutions in court only amount to 10 percent of all criminal cases.
Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for the FBI, Denise Ballew, declined to comment the report saying only that the circumstances in which the bureau allows its informants to break the law are "situational, tightly controlled.
Obama flushes Constitution and Bill of Rights???
"Obama called for the creation of an outside task force to advise his administration on how to balance civil liberties and security issues"Sorry Mr. President, there already is an "outside task force" to balance civil liberties and security issues.
It's called the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Of course you probably flushed it down the toilet after you used the Bill of Rights to wipe your *ss!!!
Obama unveils efforts to increase transparency on surveillance
By Holly Bailey, Yahoo! News | Yahoo! News
President Barack Obama unveiled new efforts to increase transparency and “build greater confidence” about the government’s controversial surveillance efforts, acknowledging that the public’s trust has been shaken after former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked operational details about the programs.
“It’s not enough for me as president to have confidence in these programs,” Obama declared at a White House news conference. “The American people have to have confidence as well.”
Among other things, Obama called for the creation of an outside task force to advise his administration on how to balance civil liberties and security issues. He also said he had directed the intelligence community to make as much information about the spying programs as possible and directed the NSA to create a website that would be a “hub” for that information.
“These steps are designed to make sure the American people can trust that our interests are aligned with our values,” Obama said.
Asked about his decision to cancel a September summit with Russian President Vladmir Putin, Obama admitted Moscow’s decision to grant Snowden asylum played a role in that decision, but insisted it wasn’t the only factor. He pointed to differences on Syria and human rights and said he believed it was more helpful to “take a pause, reassess where Russia’s going” and “calibrate the relationship” before meeting with the Russian leader.
“The latest episode is just one more in a number of emerging differences that we’ve seen over the last several months,” Obama said.
Obama announces NSA reforms
SourceObama announces NSA reforms, takes questions at news conference
By Steven R. Hurst Associated Press Fri Aug 9, 2013 1:09 PM
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama announced a series of steps Friday meant to ease fears about the scope of secret domestic and foreign surveillance activities, saying he is confident the programs are “not being abused” but that they must be more transparent.
He gave no indication he was ready to end the massive collection of information about Americans’ telephone calls and email. [This is typical of our lying double talking politicians. They have one press conference to say they are FOR something and then another press conference to say they are AGAINST the same thing. I suspect it works and people believe the version that they wish was true. As opposed to hearing both conflicting stories and realizing that one way or another the politicians are lying to us.]
In his first press conference since April, Obama also explained his decision to cancel a summit meeting next month with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and said he had only “mixed” success in moving forward in resetting the relationship between the two countries.
Russia’s recent decision to grant asylum to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden was not the only reason for calling off the Putin meeting, Obama said.
He encouraged Putin to “think forward instead of backwards” on a long list of issues that will define currently strained relations in the future.
In wide-ranging comments lasting nearly an hour, Obama also said it would not be appropriate to boycott the upcoming Winter Olympics in Sochi, despite Russian laws that discriminate against gays and lesbians.
The president also said he did not consider Snowden, who is charged in federal court with violations of the Espionage Act, as a whistleblower or “patriot.” He invited Snowden, if he feels what he did was legal and right, to return to the United States to defend his actions. [Yea, Obama will let Snowden defend his actions - from a prison cell to a kangaroo court]
Addressing the issues raised by Snowden’s leaks of secret government surveillance programs, Obama said the world needs to be convinced that U.S. espionage does not step on their rights. [In that case stop the spying and pardon Snowden and Manning]
One goal of Obama’s news conference was to try to calm anger over a spying program that has been kept secret for years and that the administration falsely denied ever existed. [Trust us, we haven't flushed the Bill of Rights down the toilet, and even if we did it's for your own benefit! Honest!!!]
The administration was releasing more information Friday about how it gathers intelligence at home and abroad, plus the legal rationale for the bulk collection of phone records without individual warrants. That program was authorized under the USA Patriot Act, which Congress hurriedly passed after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the U.S. [And many legal scholars will tell you the Patriot Act is blatantly unconstitutional!!!!]
The National Security Agency says phone records are the only things it collects in bulk under that law. [Trust us, we aren't keeping track of anything else you do. Honest! Swear to God!!! And no we didn't video tape the sex you had with that women who is your mistress] But officials have left open the possibility that it could create similar databases of people’s credit card transactions, hotel records and Internet searches. [Again trust the NSA. Don't think of them violation your Constitutional rights, they are protecting you from those terrorists that hide under your bed and only come out at night!!! Honest!!!]
The changes Obama endorsed Friday include the formation of an outside advisory panel to review U.S. surveillance powers, assigning a privacy officer at the National Security Agency, and the creation of an independent attorney to argue against the government before the nation’s surveillance court. [Yea, an independent attorney that reports to Obama and the NSA!!!]
All those new positions would carry out most of their duties in secret. [And unless another guy like Snowden comes along and exposes us, we will pretend we are no longer keeping a dossier on you.]
The debate over national security and privacy began with the leaks by Snowden, a former government contract systems analyst, who revealed classified documents exposing NSA programs that store years of phone records on every American.
That revelation prompted the most significant reconsideration yet of the vast surveillance powers Congress granted the president after the 2001 attacks.
Obama has found Congress surprisingly hostile to those powers since they were made public, especially from an unusual coalition of libertarian-leaning conservatives and liberal Democrats. [Rubbish!!! Congress is only hostile to those powers in the media because they want to get re-elected. Congress has done NOTHING to repeal the Patriot Act.]
The administration says it only looks at the phone records when investigating suspected terrorists. But testimony before Congress revealed how easy it is for Americans with no connection to terrorism to unwittingly have their calling patterns analyzed by the government.
When the NSA identifies a suspect, analysts can look not just at the suspect’s phone records but also the records of everyone he calls, everyone who calls those people and everyone who calls those people.
If the average person called 40 unique people, for example, analysis would allow the government to mine the records of 2.5 million Americans when investigating one suspected terrorist.
Yemen official: U.S. drones kill 12 in 3 airstrikes
Obama is a serial killer whose weapon of choice is drones???
President Barack Obama sounds like a sociopath who is a serial killer that uses drones as his murder weapon. Kind of like the Serial Shooters in Phoenix. You know, Dale Hausner and Samuel Dieteman. Except those creeps are amateur murderers compared to President ObamaYemen official: U.S. drones kill 12 in 3 airstrikes
Associated Press Thu Aug 8, 2013 8:36 PM
SANAA, Yemen — The U.S. has sharply escalated its drone war in Yemen, with military officials in the Arab country reporting 34 suspected al-Qaida militants killed in less than two weeks, including three strikes on Thursday alone in which a dozen died.
The action against al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, as the Yemen branch is known, comes amid a global terror alert issued by Washington. One Mideast official says the uptick is due to its leaders leaving themselves more vulnerable by moving from their normal hideouts toward areas where they could carry out attacks.
The U.S. and Britain evacuated diplomatic staff from the capital of Sanaa this week after learning of a threatened attack that prompted Washington to close temporarily 19 diplomatic posts in the Middle East and Africa.
Thursday’s first reported drone attack hit a car carrying suspected militants in the district of Wadi Ubaidah, about 175 kilometers (109 miles) east of Sanaa, and killed six, a security official said.
Badly burned bodies lay beside their vehicle, according to the official. Five of the dead were Yemenis, while the sixth was believed to be of another Arab nationality, he said.
The second drone attack killed three alleged militants in the al-Ayoon area of Hadramawt province in the south, the official said. The third, also in Hadramawt province, killed three more suspected militants in the al-Qutn area, he added.
All the airstrikes targeted cars, added the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
The drone strikes have become a near-daily routine since they began July 27. So far, they have been concentrated in remote, mountainous areas where al-Qaida’s top five leaders are believed to have taken refuge.
But drones also have been seen and heard buzzing for hours over Sanaa, worrying residents who fear getting caught in the crossfire.
While the United States acknowledges its drone program in Yemen, it does not talk about individual strikes or release information on how many are carried out. The program is run by the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command and the CIA, with the military flying its drones out of Djibouti, and the CIA out of a base in Saudi Arabia.
Pentagon spokesman Army Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale declined to comment Thursday and would not confirm the existence of a military drone program in Yemen. The CIA also declined to comment.
Since July 27, drone attacks have killed 34 suspected militants, according to an Associated Press count based on information provided by Yemeni security officials.
The terror network’s Yemeni offshoot bolstered its operations in Yemen more than a decade after key Saudi operatives fled here following a major crackdown in their homeland. The drone strikes and a U.S.-backed offensive that began in June 2012 have driven militants from towns and large swaths of land they had seized a year earlier, during Yemen’s political turmoil amid the Arab Spring.
The sudden drone barrage could further upset a population already angered by bombings that have killed civilians, said Gregory Johnsen, the author of “The Last Refuge: Yemen, al-Qaida and America’s War in Arabia.”
“It’s a really rapid increase when there was a long time where there were no drone strikes for weeks,” Johnsen said in an interview with the AP. “This has a lot of people in Yemen on edge.”
A U.S. intelligence official and a Mideast diplomat have told the AP that the embassy closures were triggered by the interception of a secret message between al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahri and Nasser al-Wahishi, the leader of the Yemen-based offshoot, about plans for a major attack.
Authorities in Yemen said they had discovered al-Qaida plot to target foreign embassies in Sanaa and international shipping in the Red Sea.
Yemeni authorities said this week that a group of al-Qaida militants have entered Sanaa and other cities to carry attacks. It issued list of 25 al-Qaida wanted militants. The Yemeni statement said security forces will pay $23,000 to anyone who comes forward with information that leads to the arrests of any of the wanted men.
The discovery of the al-Qaida plot prompted the Defense Ministry to step up security around the strategic Bab el-Mandeb waterway, which connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden. Officials banning speedboats or fishing vessels from the area.
Details of the plot were reminiscent of the suicide attack on the USS Cole in 2000 in Aden harbor that killed 17 American sailors.
One local political analyst suggests the latest plots were floated by the group to show it is still a formidable force.
“Al-Qaida has suffered losses and it is trying to make an impression,” said analyst Ali al-Sarari, who is close to the Yemeni government. “The mere talk about an upcoming attack gives the group a chance to restore its shattered image … as a group capable of exporting terrorism.”
A senior security official told AP that the al-Qaida leaders never meet together out of fear of a drone attack killing all of them at once. These include al-Wahishi, a onetime aide to Osama bin Laden; Qassem al-Raimi, believed to be the military commander; and Ibrahim al-Asiri.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to brief the media, said al-Wahishi is believed to be trying to recruit informants in the mountainous areas of Marib in central Yemen, especially in the Wadi Ubaidah valley, where tribal allies of ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh are concentrated.
Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi became president in 2012 after a year of mass protests demanding Saleh’s ouster. Since then, Hadi has accused Saleh’s men, who are still in key positions in security agencies and municipalities, of trying to hinder his reforms.
Marib is one of the few places known to be al-Qaida strongholds, and the Yemeni military has not tried to carry out a large offensive there because of the strong presence of anti-government tribes.
The official said al-Raimi is believed to be moving in southern Yemen, while al-Asiri is believed to be in the north, close to the border with Saudi Arabia, his home.
Johnsen said the U.S. faces a major problem in Yemen when it comes to intelligence gathered on the ground. By relying solely on cellphone calls and other intercepts, chances are increased that a drone strike could merely target a tribesmen who once called an al-Qaida figure, rather than a militant, he said.
“The U.S. is firing missiles into a country, if not blindly, maybe just one-eyed.” he added.
Yemeni troops have stepped up security across Sanaa, with multiple checkpoints set up and tanks and other military vehicles guarding vital institutions. The army has surrounded foreign installations, government offices and the airport with tanks and troops.
In Sanaa’s cafes and on its public transportation, the drones were a popular topic of conversation, prompting fear and even some dark humor.
“These aircraft are really scaring people here,” said Mohammed al-Mohandis, a teacher, who added that he and his friends heard the drone while chewing leaves of qat, the mild stimulant plant that is addictively used in Yemen.
Al-Mohandis even joked with his buddies that someone could have planted an electronic chip on them. “Watch out, or you are finished!” he said, drawing laughter.
Another Sanaa resident, Ahmed Said, suggested the Americans should target those who cause power outages in the city, instead of al-Qaida.
Speaking to AP over the phone, Said shouted at a man crossing the street slowly: “Hurry up, the drone will hit you!”
———
Michael reported from Cairo. Associated Press Intelligence Writer Kimberly Dozier in Washington and Jon Gambrell in Cairo contributed to this report.
Sheriff Joe's goons required to carry guns 24/7
A lame excuse to give Maricopa County Sheriff Deputy's a pay raise???
Joe's goons required to carry guns 24/7I wonder if this is a tactic to get the cops at the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office a raise???
First Sheriff Joe requires them to carry guns 24/7. I bet what will happen next is they will file a lawsuit demanding to be paid more money because they are required to carry a gun when they are off duty.
"The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office has ... implemented a policy requiring the deputies to carry a firearm at all times, even when off duty.
Let's face it the police don't "protect and serve us" as they claim, the police are at war with us. Just like in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan where the bad guys are armed with M16s which are the military version of the AR-15.
It sure would be nice if the good guys in America could be armed with AK-47s like many civilians in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan were.
Arpaio arms deputies with AR-15 style rifles
By D.S. Woodfill The Republic | azcentral.com Thu Aug 8, 2013 10:35 PM
The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office has issued semiautomatic AR-15-style rifles to each patrol deputy and implemented a policy requiring the deputies to carry a firearm at all times, even when off duty.
Hours after a Maricopa County jail worker was fatally shot in his front yard Thursday, Sheriff Joe Arpaio stood in front of hundreds of boxes with AR-15 assault rifles for his deputies.
Several rifles, bought with about $500,000 seized under federal RICO laws, were arranged in front of Arpaio’s lectern at a news conference he planned the day before Jorge Vargas was shot outside his West Valley home.
Vargas, 27, who was heading to work, was shot at about 4:30a.m. while starting his truck. Phoenix police are handling the investigation, and Arpaio said very little about the investigation.
“It’s very sad what happened,” Arpaio said. “This unfortunate situation that occurred dovetails somewhat into ... issuing my officers these semiautomatic AR-15 assault rifles.”
Arpaio said the rifles will protect deputies when they face suspects with equal firepower. He said one advantage the rifle has over a handgun is that the AR-15 can fire more rounds than a handgun before requiring reloading.
Many police departments in the Valley equip at least some of their officers with AR-15 rifles, including agencies in Tempe, Peoria and Mesa.
Tempe Police Department spokesman Mike Pooley said the rifles are a must as officers encounter criminals armed with assault rifles. He said the infamous 1997 shootout between armed bank robbers in Hollywood and the Los Angeles Police Department was what prompted most departments to purchase assault rifles.
“They (the LAPD) didn’t have rifles,” he said. “In fact they had to go to a local gun store. They were outgunned.”
Pooley said the AR-15 are superior to handguns because they are more accurate at long distances and will pierce most body armor. He said the shooters in Hollywood had body armor and police bullets were bouncing off them.
Of course it also has turned America into the worlds biggest police state. Having police criminals and government criminals abuse us is far worse then having common street criminals abuse us.
In this case the cops proudly brag that illegally searching the phone records of millions of people helped then arrest one stinking criminal. But that's just government double talk to justify the police and government of committing millions of crimes to justify one lousy arrest.
And last if you ask me I don't think it should even be a crime for some guy in the USA to give money to a group in Africa. The American government doesn't have any business passing silly laws that regulate our activities with foreign nationals.
NSA cites case as success of phone data-collection program
By Ellen Nakashima, Published: August 8 E-mail the writer
He was a San Diego cab driver who fled Somalia as a teenager, winning asylum in the United States after he was wounded during fighting among warring tribes. Today, Basaaly Moalin, 36, is awaiting sentencing following his conviction on charges that he sent $8,500 to Somalia in support of the terrorist group al-Shabab.
Moalin’s prosecution, barely noticed when the case was in court, has suddenly come to the fore of a national debate about U.S. surveillance. Under pressure from Congress, senior intelligence officials have offered it as their primary example of the unique value of a National Security Agency program that collects tens of millions of phone records from Americans.
The provision that allowed the NSA to collect phone records has helped thwart “dozens” of terror events, Gen. Keith B. Alexander told a Senate panel.
The provision that allowed the NSA to collect phone records has helped thwart “dozens” of terror events, Gen. Keith B. Alexander told a Senate panel.
Officials have said that NSA surveillance tools have helped disrupt terrorist plots or identify suspects in 54 cases in the United States and overseas. In many of those cases, an agency program that targets the communication of foreigners, including e-mails, has proved critical.
But the importance of the phone logs in disrupting those plots has been less clear — and also far more controversial since it was revealed in June.
Across a dozen years of records collection, critics say, the government has offered few instances in which the massive storehouse of Americans’ records contained the first crucial lead that cracked a case — and even those, they say, could have been obtained through a less intrusive method.
“There’s no reason why NSA needed to have its own database containing the phone records of millions of innocent Americans in order to get the information related to Moalin,” said Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), a Senate Intelligence Committee member who has been pressing officials for evidence of the program’s effectiveness. “It could have just as easily gone directly to the phone companies with an individualized court order.”
[I suspect that Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) wants the government to force private phone companies to do the spy on Americans for the government???]
U.S. officials say that the NSA’s programs often work in conjunction with one another — and that taking away a critical ability such as the “bulk collection” of phone records would undermine the agency’s effort to prevent terrorist attacks.
“You essentially have a range of tools at your disposal — one or more of these tools might tip you to a plot, other [tools] might then give you an exposure as to what the nature of that plot is,” NSA Deputy Director John C. Inglis told a Senate panel last week. “Finally, the exercise of multiple instruments of power, to include law enforcement power, ultimately completes the picture and allows you to interdict that plot.”
The NSA collects its vast digital archive of phone records under a provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. U.S. officials emphasize that those logs do not contain the names of customers or content — just “metadata,” which includes phone numbers and the times and dates of calls. They note that they need a “reasonable, articulable suspicion” that a number they wish to check in the database is linked to a foreign terrorist group.
And they say that without having all the calls in one place and easily searchable with a keystroke, finding links to suspicious numbers would be tedious and time-consuming.
Moalin’s lawyer said he is surprised that counterterrorism officials have cited his client’s case as a hallmark success.
“The notion that this case could be used to justify a mass collection of data is mind-boggling, considering it’s $8,500 that went to Somalia,” said Joshua Dratel, who denied that his client sent money to the terrorist group.
The provision that allowed the NSA to collect phone records has helped thwart “dozens” of terror events, Gen. Keith B. Alexander told a Senate panel.
The provision that allowed the NSA to collect phone records has helped thwart “dozens” of terror events, Gen. Keith B. Alexander told a Senate panel.
Needle in a haystack
It was a tip that put Moalin on the FBI’s radar in 2003. But when investigators found no link to terrorism, they closed the case. Then, in 2007, the NSA came up with a number in Somalia that it believed was linked to al-Shabab. It ran the number against its database.
Inglis said officials had no idea whether the number had ties to any number in the United States. “In order to find the needle that matched up against that number, we needed the haystack,” he said.
The NSA found that the San Diego number had had “indirect” contact with “an extremist outside the United States,” FBI Deputy Director Sean Joyce told the Senate last week. The agency passed the number to the FBI, which used an administrative subpoena to identify it as Moalin’s. Then, according to court records, in late 2007, the bureau obtained a wiretap order and over the course of a year listened to Moalin’s conversations. About 2,000 calls were intercepted.
Over several months in 2008, prosecutors say, Moalin arranged for the transfer of several thousand dollars to al-Shabab. They say he sent the money to a prominent al-Shabab military leader named Aden Hashi Ayro and other associates. In May 2008, Ayro was killed by a U.S. cruise missile strike.
In 2009, an FBI field intelligence group assessed that Moalin’s support for al-Shabab was not ideological. Rather, according to an FBI document provided to his defense team, Moalin probably sent money to an al-Shabab leader out of “tribal affiliation” and to “promote his own status” with tribal elders.
In 2010, three years after the bureau opened an investigation, it arrested Moalin as he was about to board a flight to Somalia to visit his wife and children.
Prosecutors alleged that Moalin and some acquaintances were sending money to al-Shabab to finance attacks against the transitional government of Somalia and allied fighters from Ethiopia, as well as civilians.
In the calls, Moalin is heard speaking to a man called “Sheikalow,” who prosecutors allege was Ayro, the al-Shabab commander. In one call, Sheikalow can be heard telling Moalin that it was “time to finance the jihad.”
Moalin’s defense attorneys argued that the voice was in fact that of a local police chief from Moalin’s home region, who sometimes goes by the name of Sheikalow. The police chief testified in a video deposition that he spoke with Moalin. The reference to jihad was about fighting the Ethiopians, not the West, Dratel said. He said the men were sending money to help build schools and orphanages.
In February, a jury convicted Moalin and three acquaintances — all Somali immigrants — on conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism. Moalin faces up to life in prison.
Identifying threats in U.S.
U.S. officials argue that Moalin’s number probably would not have surfaced — at least not in a timely fashion — had it not been for the database. And they draw a parallel with the period before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The provision that allowed the NSA to collect phone records has helped thwart “dozens” of terror events, Gen. Keith B. Alexander told a Senate panel.
The provision that allowed the NSA to collect phone records has helped thwart “dozens” of terror events, Gen. Keith B. Alexander told a Senate panel.
The NSA, targeting a safehouse in Yemen, intercepted seven calls from hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar. But the NSA didn’t know where he was calling from. “Lacking the originating phone number, NSA analysts concluded that al-Mihdhar was overseas,” the Justice Department said in recently declassified reports to Congress on the phone records program.
“In fact, al-Mihdhar was calling from San Diego,” the reports said.
Had the intelligence community known where Mihdhar and a co-conspirator were and detained them, the “simple fact of their detention could have derailed the plan,” the 9/11 Commission said. To close that gap, the government created the phone call database. The goal, the reports say, is to “rapidly identify any terrorist threats emanating from within the United States.”
The NSA could put together a more limited dataset by going to every phone company and asking for all the numbers that have been in contact with a target number.
[Again it seems like our government masters want to shift the spying on Americans from NSA to the local phone companies to get around those pesky 4th Amendment problems!!!]
But that takes time, and if analysts want to examine secondary contacts, they would have to go back to the phone company, officials said.
Such arguments do not persuade critics, even when the government asserts that the database helped break another case involving a co-conspirator in a plot to bomb the New York City subway system. “In both cases,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said recently on the Senate floor, “the government had all the information it needed to go to the phone company and get an individual court order.”
If time was of the essence, he said, a different court order or administrative subpoena would allow for an emergency request for the records. Wyden noted that both Moalin and the subway plot co-conspirator were arrested “months or years after they were first identified” by mining the phone logs.
The bottom line, said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a House Intelligence Committee member, is that even if the program is “only occasionally successful, there’s still no justification that I can see for obtaining that amount of data in the first place.”
Timothy H. Edgar, a former deputy privacy officer at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said that he had pushed for a middle ground solution that would let the phone companies hold the data and perform the link analysis.
“You wouldn’t have this problem of having this massive database in the hands of the government, where the government is saying, ‘Trust us,’ ” said Edgar, who is now at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Affairs.
Following the uproar about the NSA’s far-reaching collection of phone data, U.S. officials have said they are willing to discuss revisions. At the Senate hearing last week, Robert S. Litt, general counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said the administration is open to seeing “whether there are changes that can be made that are consistent with preserving the essence of the program, and yet provide greater public confidence.”
Piercing the confusion around NSA’s phone surveillance program
By Dana Priest, Published: August 8 E-mail the writer
On the third floor of the E. Barrett Prettyman courthouse in downtown Washington, judges assigned to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court place their palms on a biometric hand scanner mounted next to the entrance door. Then the judges and their staff enter a code into door’s electronic cipher lock.
Inside a secure vault — one impenetrable to any sort of technical eavesdropping — the judges review some of the Justice Department’s most sensitive requests for access to private communications information, including the phone records of tens of millions of Americans, a collection that has generated significant criticism since it was disclosed in June.
The court is staffed year-round, and on an emergency basis, to authorize surveillance by the U.S. intelligence community. Although much attention has been focused on the court’s approval of the NSA’s so-called metadata phone records program, interviews with intelligence officers and experts, public statements and recently declassified documents indicate that the authorization marks the beginning of a long — and, U.S. officials say, carefully regulated — process.
That process, they say, often starts thousands of miles away. During a night raid in Kandahar, Afghanistan, U.S. Special Operations commandos might seize a computer belonging to a terrorist cell leader, for instance, and find an electronic phone book on it. An NSA linguist listening to intercepted phone calls from a terrorist in Yemen might hear him talking repeatedly to the same person about a bomb. A Saudi intelligence service might provide the cellphone number of a new, English-speaking al-Qaeda courier to the CIA station chief in Riyadh.
In each case, the numbers would trigger a search of the NSA’s vast collection of Americans’ phone records — even local calls.
The program that collects metadata has been referred to in shorthand as the “215 program” after the section in the law that governs it. It is a search for a needle in a haystack of unimaginable proportions, and administration officials can point to few successes.
The NSA maintains a separate collection program, known as PRISM, that was exposed in June and has been at times conflated with the metadata program. But PRISM is focused not just on terrorism but any foreign intelligence matter. It is especially used to pursue foreign terrorism suspects, foreign espionage cases and investigations involving weapons of mass destruction, and it routinely sweeps up the content of e-mail and social media exchanges involving American citizens, according to documents and interviews.
There is still much confusion about each program, even among people who have been briefed on them, and even among officials involved in carrying them out. What follows is an explanation of the 215, which has generated the most controversy and the most dedicated effort at reform in Congress.
Every 90 days, Justice Department lawyers ask a federal judge to renew the authority to collect the phone records of all Americans by reissuing what is known as a “215 order,” after the section in the USA Patriot Act that government lawyers have determined permits the collection of such records. That blanket order allows NSA analysts to search the phone database for links between foreign terrorists and their U.S.-based contacts.
But to begin a particular search, analysts must submit a request to their superiors showing why there is a “reasonable, articulable suspicion” that the number belongs to a member of a recognized terrorist organization. A reasonable, articulable suspicion is lower than the standard of “probable cause” used in criminal investigations to obtain a warrant or make an arrest. But the suspicion has to be based on facts that a reasonable person would accept.
[Yea, like "I work for the government and I think that guy is a scum bag criminal" or "That guy is dating my ex-wife and he must be doing something wrong"]
The analysts’ 215 requests go to one of the 22 people at the NSA who are permitted to approve them — the chief or the deputy chief of the Homeland Security Analysis Center or one of 20 authorized Homeland Security mission coordinators within the Signals Intelligence directorate’s analysis and production directorate.
[And as we all know out of the thousands of there requests none has ever been denied by the secret NSA courts run by secret NSA judges.]
Once a request is approved, it is given to one of the Signal Intelligence directorate’s 33 counterterrorism analysts who are authorized to access the U.S. phone metadata collection.
When one of the analysts attempts to log into the database, the computer verifies whether the analyst has permission to do so. Edward Snowden, the NSA contractor who leaked details of the program, would not have had such authority.
An analyst’s search of the metadata begins with a foreign number: the number the NSA intercept was targeting in Yemen; the number the Saudi intelligence liaison took from the detainee; numbers found in the computer in Afghanistan that show calls to Europe or the United States.
The analyst then queries the database to see if it contains the number. In 2012, the database was queried 300 times by an NSA analyst.
If the database finds a U.S. phone number, the analyst will begin a “link analysis” chart of all the numbers connected to the original number and metadata about the calls, such as their date, time and duration. The metadata also includes a phone’s routing information, telephone calling card numbers and other identifiers internal to each phone.
It does not include the content of the calls or the names of the phone subscribers. It does not contain information about the phone’s location .
An analyst, for example, might find what appear to be 10 U.S. phone numbers — based on area codes or other identifiers — linked to the original number. The analyst will then use tools such as reverse telephone directories, public search engines and other NSA databases of foreign phone numbers.
Intelligence experts said other factors that could make a phone interesting to analysts are the frequency of calls linked to the initial number or the timing of calls, before or after attacks, for example.
Of the original 10 U.S.-based phone numbers identified, only two might remain interesting to the analyst. Using those two numbers, the analyst searches for all the calls made or received by those two phones. This is called a “hop.” The process often stops at the second hop but can go to a third if the second yields more numbers of interest.
Whatever numbers survive after the NSA analyst’s search are passed to the FBI for further investigation. The NSA gave the FBI 500 numbers in 2012.
The FBI’s job at this point is to find out whether any of those U.S. numbers should be investigated further for links to terrorist organizations or supporters. To do this, the FBI queries its own databases for numbers that are linked to existing bureau cases; or linked to overseas phone numbers known to be associated with other terrorist suspects; or show other foreign connections that raise questions.
The FBI can also search publicly available information, including court records, social media and certain commercial databases, which can give subscribers a person’s Social Security number, past residences and much more.
If the FBI wanted to go further, such as obtaining a person’s bank or credit card records, it would require a court order, warrant or subpoena and then an assessment or investigation probably would occur.
Each NSA database search is audited afterward by compliance officials at the agency. How many phone numbers are searched is reported every 30 days to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Every 90 days, a small team from the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence spends a day at NSA looking over 215 documents and questioning analysts. Cursory reports on 215 activity are sent to Congress every year. The last one was eight sentences.
The government says there have been no willful abuses of the system, only a few mistakes. No information has been released about those instances.
Another e-mail service shuts down over government spying concerns
By Timothy B. Lee, Published: August 9 at 1:30 am
SILENT CIRCLE LOGOA prominent supplier of secure communications services has decided to shutter its e-mail service to avoid having to turn over confidential customer information to the government. The move comes hours after another e-mail service provider called Lavabit made the same decision in order to avoid becoming “complicit in crimes against the American people” — likely a reference to government surveillance.
Silent Circle offers a suite of secure communications tools, including e-mail, chat, and voice calling to customers in 126 countries. The chat and voice services employ “end-to-end” encryption, which means that the company itself does not have the capability to unscramble customers’ communications and turn them over to the government. But e-mail services need to interoperate with other e-mail providers. That makes end-to-end encryption impractical and creates a danger that the company could be compelled to hand over information to the government.
For Silent Circle, that was a major concern because Silent Circle’s business is based on promising absolute confidentiality to its clients. “There are some very high profile, highly targeted groups of people” among the firm’s customers, says Silent Circle CEO Mike Janke. “We felt we were going to be targeted, without a doubt.”
“We see the writing the wall, and we have decided that it is best for us to shut down Silent Mail now,” the company wrote in a Thursday blog post. “We have not received subpoenas, warrants, security letters, or anything else by any government, and this is why we are acting now.”
Silent Circle’s other communications products, including voice and chat, will continue operating as usual. On those services, “there’s nothing we could turn over” to the government, Janke says. Because the company doesn’t collect information about its customers communications, “there’s nothing we could ever be forced anywhere by any country to do.”
Jannke says his firm has been growing rapidly in the two months since Edward Snowden revealed the extent of government surveillance. He doesn’t expect the closure of the e-mail service to hamper the firm’s growth. “We’re on track to have between 2 million and 3 million users by the end of this year,” he says.
The closure of the two e-mail services will provide ammunition to those who argue that aggressive spying is jeopardizing America’s leading position in the international market for online services. One recent estimate suggested that U.S. companies could lose as much as $35 billion as fears of NSA surveillance lead foreign companies to cancel their contracts with U.S. cloud service providers.
And sadly in America most people in prisons are not criminals, but people who committed victimless drug war crimes. The Federal government says over HALF the people in prisons in America are there for victimless drug war crimes.
After emotional hearing, FCC votes to lower inmate phone rates
By Ricardo Lopez and Christine Mai-Duc
August 9, 2013, 9:34 a.m.
After a decade of lobbying by prisoner advocacy groups, the Federal Communications Commission on Friday voted to lower inmate phone call rates.
The action seeks to address the exorbitant rates for phone calls made by inmates in jails and prisons across the country. A 15-minute phone call can cost $17, more than 10 times the average per-minute rate for typical consumer plans.
The proposal approved Friday will reduce the cost of phone calls made by prison inmates to a cap of 25 cents a minute for a collect call and 21 cents a minute for a debit or prepaid call.
"It took 10 years, but we are glad that the Commission will secure just and reasonable rates for everyone to protect Americans from unreasonable discrimination," said Gigi B. Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, a Washington, D.C.-based consumer rights group.
Who works the longest? Jobs with the longest and shortest workdays
Many families of prison inmates paid exorbitant fees for phone calls compared with typical long-distance rates as two telephone companies hold virtual monopolies.
The prison phone market, which brings in $1.2 billion annually, is dominated by two little-known phone companies. Global Tel-Link, based in Atlanta, and Securus Technologies of Dallas, both backed by private equity firms, make up more than 80% of the market, according to Standard & Poor's.
The result is a patchwork of contracts across states and counties, meaning a 15-minute phone call with Securus can cost $17.30 from an Alaska prison or $1.75 from Missouri, one of eight states that have banned commissions.
The companies operate by competing for exclusive rights to serve each jurisdiction, rights often won by promising the highest percentage in commissions. Hungry for revenue, state prisons and county jails have increasingly awarded contracts to companies that can promise more cash. In some cases, commissions account for as much as 60% of the cost of a phone call.
The at-times emotional hearing Friday included testimony from Bethany Fraser, whose children's father is currently incarcerated.
"Under the current rate system, my family struggles to maintain ties," Fraser told the commission.
FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, who supported lowering inmate phone rates under a different proposal, dissented Friday.
Pai had previously proposed a different cap and said that the approved proposal would essentially make the FCC a micromanager and enforcement would be difficult.
The new rules, he said, "may not withstand a court challenge."
Phone companies oppose the changes, arguing they would make an already-competitive market even tougher on their bottom lines.
The companies insist it simply costs more to provide inmate phone services, which require security features such as call screening, restricting phone numbers and blocking three-way calls.
Infamous Mexican drug lord ordered freed, sentence in DEA agent's murder overturned
By Mark Stevenson
Associated Press
Posted: 08/09/2013 09:43:03 AM PDT
MEXICO CITY (AP) -- A Mexican court on Friday ordered the release of infamous drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero after 28 years in prison for the 1985 kidnap and killing of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent, a brutal murder that marked a low point in U.S.-Mexico relations.
The court overturned Caro Quintero's 40-year sentence for the murder of Enrique Camarena, ruling he was improperly tried in a federal court for a crime that should have been treated as a state offense.
A court official who was not authorized to speak on the record said that Caro Quintero would be released because he had already served his time on other charges.
The 61-year-old Caro Quintero is considered the grandfather of Mexican drug trafficking. He established a powerful cartel based in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa that later split into some of Mexico's largest cartels, including the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels.
Mexico's relations with Washington were damaged when Caro Quintero ordered Camarena kidnapped, tortured and killed, purportedly because he was angry about a raid on a 220-acre marijuana plantation in central Mexico named "Rancho Bufalo" -- Buffalo Ranch -- that was seized by Mexican authorities at Camarena's insistence.
The raid netted up to five tons of marijuana and cost Caro Quintero and his colleagues an estimated $8 billion in lost sales.
Camarena was kidnapped on Feb. 7, 1985, in Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco state and a major drug trafficking center. His body and that of his Mexican pilot, both showing signs of torture, were found a month later, buried in shallow graves.
American officials accused their Mexican counterparts of letting Camarena's killers get away. Caro Quintero was eventually hunted down in Costa Rica.
At one point, U.S. Customs agents almost blocked the U.S. border with Mexico, slowing incoming traffic to a standstill while conducting searches of all Mexicans trying to enter the United States.
Camarena's fellow U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents consider him a hero in the war against drug trafficking and the El Paso Intelligence Center, where U.S. federal agencies collect information about Mexican drug barons, is named after him.
Caro Quintero is said to have pioneered links between Colombian cocaine cartels and the Mexican smugglers who transport their drugs into the United States.
The U.S. Embassy in Mexico City had no immediately comment on the court decision.
According to the government over half of the people in American prisons are there for victimless drug war crimes.
Man jailed 2 weeks in Phoenix terrorism hoax
Associated Press Fri Aug 9, 2013 8:26 AM
An man convicted of endangering his 16-year-old nephew’s life by sending him into a busy north Phoenix intersection dressed in sheets and a scarf and carrying a fake grenade launcher in a terrorism hoax was sentenced Thursday to two weeks in jail.
Michael David Turley, 40, had faced penalties ranging from probation to more than five years in prison after a jury found him guilty in June of endangerment and knowingly giving a false impression in the July 2012 mock terrorism scenario at a Phoenix intersection.
No one was injured but authorities say Turley could have gotten his nephew killed.
Superior Court Judge Jeanne Garcia said it was unfortunate that Turley didn’t tell his nephew to come back into his house rather than go into the streets and carry out the hoax. “It could have been a whole lot worse than it was,” she said.
Turley filmed his nephew pointing the plaster replica of a grenade launcher at passing cars. The youth was dressed in a sheet, had a scarf wrapped around his head and made erratic movements while in a crosswalk, prompting motorists to call 911. Turley posted a video of the hoax on YouTube.
Prosecutor Michael Anderson had asked for 100 days of jail time, saying Turley hasn’t taken responsibility for his actions, even after a jury found him guilty of two crimes. “He is contesting, to this day, the injustice of all of this,” Anderson said.
Turley made a tearful plea to the judge to spare him jail time, often pausing to compose himself, and said he used poor judgment and that he understands the danger he placed his nephew in. He likened his relationship with his nephew to that of a father and son.
[If you ask me his only poor judgement was thinking he had First Amendment free speech rights.]
He said his arrest has hurt his career in TV and film production and that the case has financially ruined him. “I have most definitely learned something through this,” Turley said.
[He isn't the first person the government has bankrupted by arresting on bogus charges and won't be the last]
Prosecutors say some motorists who saw the teen with the realistic-looking fake launcher had discussions about whether they should run him over. Still, some recordings of 911 calls also showed that some witnesses assumed the weapon was a fake.
Turley’s attorney Brad Rideout had argued the felony case was more like a misdemeanor case in nature and said that those who witnessed the hoax didn’t suffer any long-term trauma.
Turley testified at the trial that his video of the hoax was meant to be satirical and that most passing motorists laughed at them. He told jurors he didn’t think his actions endangered his nephew.
If you ask me the "war on terror" is nothing but a government welfare program for the companies in the military industrial complex. And a jobs program for generals, admirals and all the federal police agencies that are involved in the "war on terror"
And of course all those folks are also special interest groups that give Congress bribes, oops, I mean campaign contributions in exchange for Congress voting to continue the "war on terror"
Threats Test Obama’s Balancing Act on Surveillance
By MARK MAZZETTI and SCOTT SHANE
Published: August 9, 2013
WASHINGTON — President Obama has said he wants eventually to scale back drone strikes and steer the country away from a single-minded focus on counterterrorism. But in response to a vague yet ominous terror warning in recent days, his administration shut down nearly two dozen American embassies and consulates and waged an intense drone campaign in Yemen.
The Obama administration on Friday released documents related to the legal rationale for surveillance efforts.
American officials speak of the need for vigorous debate about controversial National Security Agency programs revealed by Edward J. Snowden, and Mr. Obama on Friday promised greater accountability to keep the surveillance state in check. Yet his underlying message was clear: the expansive monitoring of telephone and electronic communications would continue because the safety of the country depended on it.
America’s war on terrorism may one day end, as Mr. Obama said in a speech in May, but until that happens the president has given every indication that it will be fought in much the same way it has for nearly 12 years. Even Mr. Obama’s promise of more transparency appeared to fail an instant test during his Friday news conference. Asked about the flurry of American drone strikes in Yemen, which have been reported by every news outlet, Mr. Obama demurred.
“I will not have a discussion about operational issues,” he said.
Mr. Obama, who ran for office in 2008 against what he described as the excesses of counterterrorism under President George W. Bush, has occasionally expressed ambivalence about drone strikes and aggressive surveillance. But with Republicans ever ready to pounce with accusations that he has made the country less safe, he has declined to abandon any of the tools used by his predecessor, with the sole exception of the brutal interrogation methods once used by the C.I.A.
The government’s striking response to the reported terror threat in recent days has coincided with a wave of unprecedented skepticism about the N.S.A.’s sweeping surveillance programs since Mr. Snowden’s disclosures.
When Mr. Snowden began releasing secret documents two months ago, Mr. Obama said he welcomed a debate on the trade-offs of N.S.A. surveillance and privacy. But the debate has grown far larger than administration officials anticipated, with lawmakers of both parties in Congress and half of Americans in polls calling for curbs on the agency.
On Thursday, two small companies providing secure e-mail to customers added their voices. Lavabit and Silent Circle announced that they would shut down their e-mail services rather than give in to what they suggested was government pressure to make customers’ messages available to the N.S.A.
In a message on his Web site, Ladar Levison, the founder of Lavabit, said he was forced “to become complicit in crimes against the American people or walk away from nearly 10 years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit.”
He said he was prohibited by law from explaining what had happened over the last six weeks, but the suggestion was that he was fighting a government demand for access to the e-mail of one or more customers.
Mr. Snowden’s disclosures have had a continuing, even escalating impact as journalists have continued to pore over them. On Thursday, for instance, The New York Times wrote that the N.S.A. was examining all e-mail messages in and out of the country and searching them for clues associated with terrorism or foreign intelligence.
On Friday, The Guardian, the British newspaper that has published many of Mr. Snowden’s revelations, wrote about a clause in N.S.A. rules that permits the agency to search for Americans’ names and identifying information in data about foreign targets gathered from large Internet companies.
In his remarks on Friday, Mr. Obama said he was satisfied that the N.S.A. programs were both necessary and respectful of Americans’ privacy. He acknowledged the “instinctive bias of the intelligence community to keep everything very close.” But he said he had urged America’s spies to err on the side of making more details public.
“Let’s just put the whole elephant out there, and examine what’s working,” he said.
On Friday evening, the State Department announced that nearly all of the embassies and consulates that had been closed this week would reopen on Sunday — with only the American Embassy in Sana, Yemen, remaining closed. The consulate in Lahore, Pakistan, will also stay closed, the result of what American officials said is a different threat from the one that had forced the closing of the other diplomatic posts.
With intelligence agencies try trying to piece together information about a terror plot allegedly discussed in recent weeks between senior Qaeda operatives, American drones delivered a flurry of missile strikes throughout Yemen.
Eight strikes have been carried out in Yemen in the past two weeks, a ferocious rate of drone attacks rivaled only by the two-week period after a suicide bomber killed seven C.I.A. employees at a base in Afghanistan in December 2009.
During his speech at National Defense University in May, President Obama said that targeted killing operations needed to be tightly constrained. The United States only carries out strikes against terrorists who pose a “continuing and imminent threat” to Americans, the president said, and only when it is determined it would be impossible to detain them, rather than kill them.
And, Mr. Obama said, “before any strike is taken, there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injure — the highest standard we can set.”
It is yet unknown who exactly was killed in Yemen during the past two weeks. Therefore, it is hard to judge the recent strikes against those standards the president laid out in May. Specifically, did the dozens of people reportedly killed all pose a “direct and imminent threat”? And, with American officials fearing that an attack could happen at any moment, just how much care was taken before each strike to determine that no civilians were in the missiles’ path?
At the very least, this extraordinary period of killing operations in Yemen has revealed just how much the president’s stated inclination to be more judicious about drone strikes is tested in a period of perceived crisis.
Striking a balance between liberty and security is a leitmotif in many of President Obama’s speeches, and on Friday he spoke of “rebalancing” the ledger after the demands of more than a decade of war.
But the changes he announced on Friday were incremental rather than radical — more of what he referred to as “tightening the bolts” rather than dismantling the machine itself.
A lame excuse to flush the Bill of Rights down the toilet
NSA cites case as success of phone data-collection program
Sure if you flush the Bill of Rights down the toilet and give the police and our governments masters unlimited powers it will cut down on crime.
Piercing the confusion around NSA’s phone surveillance program
Source
Another e-mail service shuts down over government spying concerns
Source
FCC votes to lower inmate phone rates
When it comes to phone calls the criminal justice system is more about raising revenue for special interest groups then rehabilitating criminals.
Drug lord ordered freed, sentence in DEA agent's murder overturned
Source
Man jailed 2 weeks in Phoenix terrorism hoax
Sadly our prisons are full of people who have been convicted of victimless crimes.
Threats Test Obama’s Balancing Act on Surveillance
Emperor Obama and Congress shovel the BS and tell us they are against the NSA spying, but they do nothing to repeal the unconstitutional Patriot Act which allows it.
Phoenix man seeks to recall Rep. Kyrsten Sinema
Rep. Kyrsten Sinema supports the police state Patriot Act???
Phoenix man seeks to recall Rep. Kyrsten SinemaKyrsten Sinema when she was in the Arizona legislator tried to flush Arizona's medical marijuana laws down the toilet by introducing a bill to slap a 300 percent tax on medical marijuana.
When I first met Kyrsten Sinema it was in the anti-war movement.
But it seems that Kyrsten Sinema has sold out the anti-war movement and now supports the police state and military industrial complex.
When I knew Kyrsten Sinema she was also a gun grabber.
Last in almost every election when Kyrsten Sinema has run for office her campaign signs say she is supported by the police unions. I guess that is a good indication that Kyrsten Sinema has sold out to the police state.
Phoenix man seeks to recall Rep. Sinema
By Erin Kelly Gannett Washington Bureau Fri Aug 9, 2013 3:26 PM
WASHINGTON -- A Phoenix man has applied to circulate a petition to recall U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema from office because he does not like how she voted on a measure to prevent the National Security Agency from collecting phone data on Americans as part of its intelligence-gathering efforts.
However, a spokesman for Secretary of State Ken Bennett said the secretary of state’s office would not order a recall election in Sinema’s case even if thousands of signatures are collected because the congresswoman is not bound by the state’s recall law.
In Arizona, some federal officials have signed a voluntary pledge through the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office agreeing to accept the results of any recall election, if one is called. Sinema never signed that pledge.
“Sinema didn’t sign the pledge so the entire process would end without a recall being ordered,” said Matt Roberts, Bennett’s spokesman.
No member of Congress from Arizona, even those who signed the pledge, has ever been recalled.
On Thursday, Phoenix resident Michael David Shipley applied to the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office, stating his intent to circulate and file a recall petition against Sinema, a freshman Democrat. He listed himself as treasurer of an organization called the “Nullify Sinema Alliance.” Another Phoenix man, Thane Eichenauer, was listed as chairman of the group.
The application objects to the fact that Sinema voted against an amendment to a defense spending bill.
That amendment, which failed after a close vote, was introduced by Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., and would have prevented the National Security Agency from collecting most telephone data under the Patriot Act anti-terrorism law. The agency would have been able to collect data only from people under investigation and could not have conducted broader intelligence-gathering efforts in the United States.
Shipley’s application says that Sinema “has broken her oath” to defend the U.S. Constitution by voting against the legislation.
“On July 24th, 2013, (Sinema) chose not to stand with 205 other U.S. House members in placing a limit on government snooping,” the application says. “Kyrsten Sinema chose to reject limits on NSA data collection. In doing this, she supports a ‘Big Brother’ government with no limits. We call on our fellow Arizona residents to support the recall of Kyrsten Sinema.”
Sinema, in a press release issued on the day of the vote, said she voted against Amash’s amendment because it was too broad and she feared it would interfere with the NSA’s efforts to thwart terrorist plots.
“I believe, while well intentioned, that the text of this amendment could interfere with legitimate and appropriate efforts to keep our citizens safe from harm,” Sinema said. “The broad language we considered today could have limited the ability of our national security and law enforcement community to prevent the bombing plot against the New York subway system or to quickly respond to events like the Boston bombing.”
Instead, Sinema voted for an alternative amendment by Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., that prevents the NSA from storing the content of Americans e-mails and phone calls. It would allow the NSA to continue storing phone metadata. It passed 409-12.
“I believe this (Pompeo’s amendment) is a good step forward and that we can find stronger ways to protect our individual liberties,” Sinema said.
If Shipley disagrees with Sinema’s vote, he should run against her rather than trying to recall her, said Sinema campaign spokesman Rodd McLeod. Sinema is up for re-election in November 2014.
“The entire House of Representatives is up for re-election next fall, and if this gentleman wants to run against Kyrsten, it’s a free country,” McLeod said. “He should run.”
Shipley, a 38-year-old Libertarian and local activist, said opponents of Sinema’s vote shouldn’t have to wait until the regular election.
“I definitely haven’t ruled out myself or somebody else I’ve organized with running against her,” Shipley said Friday. “But why wait? Why should we sit and be unhappy and see our wishes thrown under the bus? The time to act is now, not later.”
Under Arizona law, a candidate for the U.S. Senate or U.S. House “may” file with the secretary of state a statement that says, “If elected, I shall deem myself responsible to the people and under obligation to them to resign immediately if not re-elected on a recall vote.”
Federal candidates who sign that pledge and are elected to office “shall be subject to the laws of the state relating to recall of public officers,” according to the Arizona statute.
But Sinema did not subject herself to any state recall laws since she did not sign the Arizona pledge. And a January 2012 report by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service says that members of Congress are not subject to recall.
“The United States Constitution does not provide for nor authorize the recall of United States officers such as Senators, Representatives, or the President or Vice President, and thus no Member of Congress has ever been recalled in the history of the United States,” the CRS report says.
Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema takes a junket to Israel
Atheist Kyrsten Sinema sells out to the Jewish Christian lobbyists???
Atheist US Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema sells out to the Jewish Christian lobbyists???Even though US Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema is an atheist in this article see seems to have sold out to the Jewish Christian lobbyists. And of course she also seems to have sold out to the military industrial complex which supplies Israel with weapons that they use to terrorize the Arabs.
"Sinema and other Democratic lawmakers were in Israel on a previously scheduled trip paid for by an arm of a powerful pro-Israel lobbying group."
Last but not least US Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema attempted to flush Arizona's medical marijuana law down the toilet by introducing a 300 percent tax on medical marijuana.
Political Insider: Irate Goldwater refuses to answer senator’s questions on its ties to ALEC
The Republic | azcentral.com Sat Aug 10, 2013 10:17 PM
Another assault on freedom ... Or so the Goldwater Institute believes, as it sent an indignant retort to a U.S. senator who asked the conservative think tank if it is associated with the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council.
Specifically, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., wanted to know if Goldwater served as an ALEC member, if it funded ALEC this year and if it backed ALEC’s support of model legislation promoting “stand your ground” gun laws.
The reason for the Illinois senator’s snoopiness? Durbin wrote that he needs the information as he readies a congressional hearing on the self-defense law. He’s also reaching out to other groups that have been identified as ALEC funders.
Goldwater officials fired off a letter that effectively told Durbin to stuff it.
“Simply put, especially in the wake of IRS intimidation and harassment of conservative organizations, your inquisition is an outrage,” wrote Goldwater president Darcy Olsen, litigation director Clint Bolick and policy director Nick Dranias.
They refused to answer, because, they wrote, “as free Americans, that is our right.”
For the record, media reports have identified Goldwater as an ALEC donor.
Sorry, can’t make it, I had other plans ... Wendy Rogers, the tough, bike-riding, Republican Air Force mom who’s hoping to unseat U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema in the midterm elections, was outraged that her potential Democratic rival missed President Barack Obama’s Phoenix speech this week.
“Disrespectful. Self-serving. In it for herself,” Rogers, who ran unsuccessfully in the primary last year, blustered on her Facebook page. “Today the president of the United States came to our AZ-09 district, yet our congresswoman didn’t even show perfunctory respect by at least showing up.”
Sinema and other Democratic lawmakers were in Israel on a previously scheduled trip paid for by an arm of a powerful pro-Israel lobbying group.
Arizona’s Republican members of Congress were in town. And none of them was at Obama’s speech, either.
He’s the president. ’Nuff said ... The state’s congressional delegation may have missed Obama’s speech, but the Legislature and Gov. Jan Brewer’s office were well represented.
The GOP gaggle waiting to get inside the Desert Vista High School auditorium wasn’t exactly thrilled to see Insider and offered different reasons for stepping into the swarm of swooning Democrats.
Senate Majority Leader John McComish said his district includes the Ahwatukee Foothills school, so he was representing his constituents. Senate Majority Whip Adam Driggs said the commander in chief, no matter their party, is a big deal: “It’s out of respect for the office.”
Brewer chief of staff Scott Smith, general counsel Joe Sciarrotta and spokesman Andrew Wilder also attended the speech. But given Brewer’s rather scathing prepared statement that followed — “Our recovery has been made possible in spite of the president’s policies — not because of them” — they apparently weren’t impressed.
State schools Superintendent John Huppenthal arrived early and grabbed a VIP seat with a passel of Democratic lawmakers. He’s the state’s top education official, and the speech was at a school, so that’s a handy excuse if he needs one.
But, really, does anyone need an excuse to see the president?
No resign if I run ... House Speaker Andy Tobin, R-Paulden, is eying a run for the Congressional District 1 seat. And while he won’t say if he’s in, plenty of others in the political-gossip echo chamber are saying it for him.
Tobin said if he decides to take the plunge, he won’t jump out of the pool that is the Arizona Legislature. Tobin said he intends to remain speaker through the 2014 session, which would coincide with the eight-year limit on his term.
It’s bad form to abandon one office to seek another, he said.
Early prediction: If Tobin does jump into the CD1 race, look for a short session. It’s hard to campaign across a vast chunk of rural Arizona when you’re tied up in Phoenix.
Compiled by Republic reporters Mary Jo Pitzl, Mary K. Reinhart and Rebekah L. Sanders. Get the latest at politics.azcentral.com.
Snowden's father decries 'political theater' over son's leaks
SourceSnowden's father decries 'political theater' over son's leaks
By Christi Parsons
August 11, 2013, 12:07 p.m.
WASHINGTON – The father of Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, complained Sunday about the “political theater” surrounding his son’s disclosures of secret surveillance programs and dismissed President Obama’s proposed reforms as “superficial.”
Lon Snowden said he was disappointed with Obama’s promises at a news conference on Friday to reform spying practices and credited his son with spurring the president to act. [Obama hasn't done anything other then spout a lot of hot air on how this is bad, bad, bad. I suspect Emperor Obama will do NOTHING to stop the NSA from violating the 4th Amendment]
“I believe that's driven by his clear understanding that the American people are absolutely unhappy with what they've learned and that more is going to be forthcoming,” Snowden said in an exclusive interview on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”
“I believe much of what he suggested is superficial,” Snowden said.
Other critics agreed Sunday that the president might not have acted at all if not for the Snowden leaks. Among the disclosures, Snowden revealed information showing the NSA has assembled a massive database of telephone call logs of virtually every American.
But there was considerable debate about whether the president’s pledge to reform NSA surveillance programs was mainly for show and whether it will quell public concern. [I'm sure it's all for show and that President Obama and Congress will do NOTHING. Well nothing other then spew a bunch of how air about how bad this is and how it needs fixing!]
After weeks of controversy over the spy programs, Obama proposed to put in place greater oversight, more transparency and safeguards against abuse. He also proposed creating a role for a civil liberties advocate to ensure the government will no longer be the only side represented when its requests to conduct surveillance are weighed by the secret court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Obama is also considering changes to the law to limit how much information on Americans the NSA can get and how long it can retain the data.
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, said he thinks the president’s reforms are “window dressing.” [I suspect that is also a bunch of hot air coming from Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas]
“The problem, fundamentally, is he’s failed to explain these programs, which are lawful, which have saved lives,” he said, “and now he’s in a bit of a mess.”
But McCaul said he worries that Obama’s idea of adding a privacy advocate to the Foreign Service Intelligence Act court would slow down investigations.
“I’m in a unique position to talk about this,” McCaul said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I actually applied for FISA warrants as a counterterrorism prosecutor, and I think the idea of having a public defender . . . would slow down the efficacy and efficiency of our counterterrorism investigation.” [Yea, and obeying the Bill of Rights will also slow down counterterrorism investigations. I bet you also want to flush the Bill of Rights down the toilet in the interest of government efficiency.]
Former NSA director Michael Hayden says he took Obama to mean he wouldn’t really “operationally change” things at the NSA.
Like McCaul, though, he raised concerns about the effect of a privacy advocate before the FISA court.
“Looking through your windscreen when you lay this on, it just looks like more thorough oversight,” Hayden said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “When you’re looking in your rearview mirror after the next successful attack, this runs the danger of looking like bureaucratic layering.”
In the days since Snowden accepted temporary asylum in Russia, avoiding return to the U.S. to face charges for violating the Espionage Act and stealing government property, supporters and critics have argued about whether he is a traitor or whistleblower, a defector or a patriot.
Obama on Friday said that, whatever Snowden claims to have done, he isn’t a “patriot.” [Snowden is a patriot, Obama is a tyrant!]
Snowden’s father said Sunday he thinks the president’s public pronouncements have made it difficult for his son to get fair treatment if he returns to the United States.
“They have poisoned the well, so to speak, in terms of a potential jury pool,” he said on ABC.
“As a father, I want my son to come home if I believe that the justice system that we should be afforded as Americans is going to be applied correctly,” Snowden said.
Edward Snowden’s lawyer, Bruce Fein, said he has secured visas for a visit but declined to say when he and Snowden’s father will travel.
The family has told the Department of Justice that they would like to discuss the conditions under which Edward Snowden would return to the United States.
One thing they have requested is a “venue that was impartial,” Fein said, “because of the history of the Eastern District of Virginia being a graveyard for defendants.”
christi.parsons@latimes.com
Twitter: @cparsons
After Guantánamo, Another Injustice
SourceAfter Guantánamo, Another Injustice
By JOHN GRISHAM
Published: August 10, 2013
ABOUT two months ago I learned that some of my books had been banned at Guantánamo Bay. Apparently detainees were requesting them, and their lawyers were delivering them to the prison, but they were not being allowed in because of “impermissible content.”
I became curious and tracked down a detainee who enjoys my books. His name is Nabil Hadjarab, and he is a 34-year-old Algerian who grew up in France. He learned to speak French before he learned to speak Arabic. He has close family and friends in France, but not in Algeria. As a kid growing up near Lyon, he was a gifted soccer player and dreamed of playing for Paris St.-Germain, or another top French club.
Tragically for Nabil, he has spent the past 11 years as a prisoner at Guantánamo, much of the time in solitary confinement. Starting in February, he participated in a hunger strike, which led to his being force-fed.
For reasons that had nothing to do with terror, war or criminal behavior, Nabil was living peacefully in an Algerian guesthouse in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Sept. 11, 2001. Following the United States invasion, word spread among the Arab communities that the Afghan Northern Alliance was rounding up and killing foreign Arabs. Nabil and many others headed for Pakistan in a desperate effort to escape the danger. En route, he said, he was wounded in a bombing raid and woke up in a hospital in Jalalabad.
At that time, the United States was throwing money at anyone who could deliver an out-of-town Arab found in the region. Nabil was sold to the United States for a bounty of $5,000 and taken to an underground prison in Kabul. There he experienced torture for the first time. To house the prisoners of its war on terror, the United States military put up a makeshift prison at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Bagram would quickly become notorious, and make Guantánamo look like a church camp. When Nabil arrived there in January 2002, as one of the first prisoners, there were no walls, only razor-wire cages. In the bitter cold, Nabil was forced to sleep on concrete floors without cover. Food and water were scarce. To and from his frequent interrogations, Nabil was beaten by United States soldiers and dragged up and down concrete stairs. Other prisoners died. After a month in Bagram, Nabil was transferred to a prison at Kandahar, where the abuse continued.
Throughout his incarceration in Afghanistan, Nabil strenuously denied any connection to Al Qaeda, the Taliban or anyone or any organization remotely linked to the 9/11 attacks. And the Americans had no proof of his involvement, save for bogus claims implicating him from other prisoners extracted in a Kabul torture chamber. Several United States interrogators told him his was a case of mistaken identity. Nonetheless, the United States had adopted strict rules for Arabs in custody — all were to be sent to Guantánamo. On Feb. 15, 2002, Nabil was flown to Cuba; shackled, bound and hooded.
Since then, Nabil has been subjected to all the horrors of the Gitmo handbook: sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, temperature extremes, prolonged isolation, lack of access to sunlight, almost no recreation and limited medical care. In 11 years, he has never been permitted a visit from a family member. For reasons known only to the men who run the prison, Nabil has never been waterboarded. His lawyer believes this is because he knows nothing and has nothing to give.
The United States government says otherwise. In documents, military prosecutors say that Nabil was staying at a guesthouse run by people with ties to Al Qaeda and that he was named by others as someone affiliated with terrorists. But Nabil has never been charged with a crime. Indeed, on two occasions he has been cleared for a “transfer,” or release. In 2007, a review board established by President George W. Bush recommended his release. Nothing happened. In 2009, another review board established by President Obama recommended his transfer. Nothing happened.
According to his guards, Nabil is a model prisoner. He keeps his head down and avoids trouble. He has perfected his English and insists on speaking the language with his British lawyers. He writes in flawless English. As much as possible, under rather dire circumstances, he has fought to preserve his physical health and mental stability.
In the past seven years, I have met a number of innocent men who were sent to death row, as part of my work with the Innocence Project, which works to free wrongly convicted people. Without exception they have told me that the harshness of isolated confinement is brutal for a coldblooded murderer who freely admits to his crimes. For an innocent man, though, death row will shove him dangerously close to insanity. You reach a point where it feels impossible to survive another day.
DEPRESSED and driven to the point of desperation, Nabil joined a hunger strike in February. This was not Gitmo’s first hunger strike, but it has attracted the most attention. As it gained momentum, and as Nabil and his fellow prisoners got sicker, the Obama administration was backed into a corner. The president has taken justified heat as his bold and eloquent campaign promises to close Gitmo have been forgotten. Suddenly, he was faced with the gruesome prospect of prisoners dropping like flies as they starved themselves to death while the world watched. Instead of releasing Nabil and the other prisoners who have been classified as no threat to the United States, the administration decided to prevent suicides by force-feeding the strikers.
Nabil has not been the only “mistake” in our war on terror. Hundreds of other Arabs have been sent to Gitmo, chewed up by the system there, never charged and eventually transferred back to their home countries. (These transfers are carried out as secretly and as quietly as possible.) There have been no apologies, no official statements of regret, no compensation, nothing of the sort. The United States was dead wrong, but no one can admit it.
In Nabil’s case, the United States military and intelligence agents relied on corrupt informants who were raking in American cash, or even worse, jailhouse snitches who swapped false stories for candy bars, porn and sometimes just a break from their own beatings.
Last week, the Obama administration announced that it was transferring some more Arab prisoners back to Algeria. It is likely that Nabil will be one of them, and if that happens another tragic mistake will be made. His nightmare will only continue. He will be homeless. He will have no support to reintegrate him into a society where many will be hostile to a former Gitmo detainee, either on the assumption that he is an extremist or because he refuses to join the extremist opposition to the Algerian government. Instead of showing some guts and admitting they were wrong, the American authorities will whisk him away, dump him on the streets of Algiers and wash their hands.
What should they do? Or what should we do?
First, admit the mistake and make the apology. Second, provide compensation. United States taxpayers have spent $2 million a year for 11 years to keep Nabil at Gitmo; give the guy a few thousand bucks to get on his feet. Third, pressure the French to allow his re-entry.
This sounds simple, but it will never happen.
Most people are in prison for victimless drug war crimes
After victimless drug war crimes most people are in prison for weapons violations
Victimless drug and gun crimes are why most people are in Federal prisons.
51 percent of federal prison inmates are there for victimless drug war crimes. In the above graph the second highest number of people are in federal prisons for weapons violations. The article didn't give a percent for weapons violations.
Eric Holder is cutting federal drug sentences. That will make a small dent in the U.S. prison population.
By Dylan Matthews, Published: August 12 at 2:50 pm
Populations at federal prisons have grown, but state prisons are the real problem.
Attorney General Eric Holder will announce Monday that the Justice Department will no longer charge nonviolent drug offenders with serious crimes that subject them to long, mandatory minimum sentences in the federal prison system. As my colleague Sari Horwitz explains, Holder “is giving new instructions to federal prosecutors on how they should write their criminal complaints when charging low-level drug offenders, to avoid triggering the mandatory minimum sentences.”
He’s also expected to call for the expanded use of prison alternatives, such as probation or house arrest, for nonviolent offenders and for lower sentences for elderly inmates. And he’ll endorse legislation by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Pat Leahy (D-Vt.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) that would increase federal judges’ flexibility in sentencing nonviolent drug offenders.
The changes Holder wants will likely make a big difference at the federal level. But that won’t be enough to solve America’s mass incarceration problem.
Focusing on drug offenses is a smart way to go about reducing the federal incarceration rate. According to data in Why Are So Many Americans in Prison?, a new book by UC – Berkeley’s Steven Raphael and UCLA’s Michael Stoll, the most serious charge for 51 percent of federal inmates in 2010 was a drug offense. By comparison, homicide was the most serious charge for only 1 percent, and robbery was the most serious charge against 4 percent.
Tougher drug sentencing accounts for much of the increase in the incarceration rate. “If you go back and decompose what caused growth in the federal prison system since 1984, a large chunk can be explained by drug offenses, around 45 percent,” Raphael says. The other big category accounting for the federal increase is weapons charges, such as the five-year mandatory minimum faced by drug offenders caught with guns. Raphael estimates that that accounts for 18 to 19 percent of the increase.
There’s also been an increase in incarcerations on immigration charges, with the rest of the increase in other areas. But there’s no doubt that the biggest category of crime behind the increase in the federal incarceration rate is drugs. Easing up on drug sentencing would make a big dent.
The states are different
But the federal system isn’t really where the action is. The most recent Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) estimates find that there are 1,353,198 people incarcerated at the state level and 217,815 incarcerated federally. So about 13.9 percent of U.S. prisoners are in federal institutions; the other 86.1 percent are in state facilities. And most prisoners at the state level are not there for drug crimes.
In 2004, about 20 percent of state-level inmates were incarcerated on drug convictions, Raphael and Stoll find. Compared with the federal population, those incarcerated at the state level are much likelier to have committed violent offenses. In 2004, 14 percent were in prison for homicide, 9 percent for rape or sexual assault, 12 percent for robbery and 8 percent for aggravated assault. In 2011, it was much the same, according to BJS stats on state inmates serving sentences of a year or more. Fifty-three percent of inmates were in prison for violent offenses, 18.3 percent for property crimes, 10.6 percent for “public order” offenses such as drunk driving, weapons possession or vice offenses, and 16.8 percent for drug convictions.
Bjs state breakdown
Raphael and Stoll’s estimates of what’s accounting for the higher incarceration rates suggest that violent crimes are a big part of the state-level story. They find that harsher sentencing for violent offenders explains 48 percent of growth in incarceration rates, compared with about 22 percent attributable to increases in drug sentencing, and 15 percent due to increases in property crime and other sentences.
Then again, most people who go through state criminal justice systems do so on drug offenses. If you look at admission rates, rather than incarceration rates, at the state level, drugs become a much bigger part of the picture. For admissions, Raphael and Stoll find “relatively modest increases for violent crimes and property crimes and pronounced increases for drug offenses, parole violations, and other less serious crime.” And while higher admissions for less serious crimes with shorter sentences don’t affect the incarceration rate as much as increases in sentencing for serious crimes, they do dramatically affect the lives of those admitted, who have to find work as ex-offenders and live with the sundry restrictions states impose upon those who’ve served time.
It’s not hopeless
Holder is taking a fairly plausible approach to reducing the U.S. incarceration rate at the level where he can effect it. But that’s not the level that matters most, and if we were to get serious about reducing the state-level incarceration and admissions rates, we need to talk not just about reducing sentences for drug crimes but also about reducing prison admissions for drug offenses, and perhaps also lowering sentences for property crime and even violent offenses, particularly robbery.
There has been growing enthusiasm for reforming state sentencing laws, even backed by many conservatives. The American Legislative Exchange Council has joined the cause, creating model legislation for loosening state mandatory minimum laws. Especially if it’s not just limited to drug offenses, that kind of reform could greatly reduce the state incarceration rate.
My view is that this is directly from H. L. Mencken line of:
Nuclear-missile unit fails security test
By Robert Burns Associated Press Tue Aug 13, 2013 10:37 PM
WASHINGTON — An Air Force unit that operates one-third of the nation’s land-based nuclear missiles has failed a safety and security inspection, marking the second major setback this year for a force charged with the military’s most sensitive mission, the general in charge of the nuclear air force said Tuesday.
Lt. Gen. James Kowalski, commander of the Air Force Global Strike Command, said a team of “relatively low-ranking” airmen failed one exercise as part of a broader inspection, which began last week and ended Tuesday. [So blame it on the low end guys, rather then the officers that supervise them???]
He said that, for security reasons, he could not be specific about the team or the exercise. [Another government nanny telling us to "trust him" because we can't be trusted to know what the government is doing. This really bothers me.]
“This unit fumbled on this exercise,” Kowalski said by telephone from his headquarters at Barksdale Air Force Base, La., adding that this did not call into question the safety or control of nuclear weapons at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana.
“The team did not demonstrate the right procedures,” he said, and it was rated a failure. “(To elaborate) could reveal a potential vulnerability (in the force),” Kowalski added.
In a written statement on its website, Kowalski’s command said there had been “tactical-level errors” in the snap exercise, revealing “discrepancies.”
Without more details, it is difficult to reliably judge the extent and severity of the problem uncovered at Malmstrom, home of the 341st Missile Wing, which is one of three nuclear-missile wings.
Each wing operates 150 Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, on alert for potential launch against targets around the globe.
On Capitol Hill, a spokesman for Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said that “two troubling inspections in a row at two different missile wings is unacceptable” to McKeon.
“It is his sense that the Air Force must refocus on the nuclear mission,” spokesman John Noonan said. “The Air Force should hold failed leadership at the group and wing level accountable, recommit itself from the top down to the nuclear-deterrent mission, and ensure a daily focus on its centrality to our nation’s security.”
In response to word of the failed inspection, George Little, press secretary for the Pentagon, said the bottom line for nuclear forces hasn’t changed: “Our nuclear forces remain fully capable and ready.” [To kill every body on the face of the earth or just to kill everybody on the face of the earth that is an evil commie???]
“While the fact that the unit made errors during this exercise is disappointing, this type of exercise is designed to push people to their limits and learn how to improve,” Little said. [Gee, the Cold War has been going on for 60+ years. I figured the government would have this stuff down pat!!!]
Asked whether the Air Force intends to take disciplinary action against anyone for the inspection failure, Kowalski said the Air Force is “looking into it.” [But don't count on it. Our government masters rarely punish fellow government bureaucrats for their crimes or mistakes]
Overall, the 341st Missile Wing “did well,” he said, earning ratings of excellent or outstanding in the majority of the 13 areas in which it was graded by inspectors.
Those areas include management, administration, safety, security, emergency exercises, worker reliability and other facets of a mission that relies on teams of officers and enlisted personnel.
ICBM wings undergo two types of inspections. The one at Malmstrom was a “surety” inspection, which the Pentagon defines as “nuclear-weapon-system safety, security and control.” The point is to ensure that no nuclear weapon is accidentally, inadvertently or deliberately armed or launched without presidential authority.
Kowalski said his command’s inspector general has conducted 14 such inspections since early 2010 with just two failures — both involving the 341st Missile Wing. The first was in February 2010. The second was this week.
The 341st also failed a safety and security inspection in 2008.
A different type of inspection of the 91st Missile Wing at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., in March of this year led the deputy commander of the wing’s operations group to complain of “rot” in the force.
Technically, the wing passed that inspection, but its missile crews earned the equivalent of a “D’’ grade when tested on their mastery of Minuteman 3 launch operations using a simulator.
The following month, the 91st temporarily removed 17 officers from launch-control duty — the first time such a large number had been pulled from duty.
In June, Lt. Col. Randy Olson, the commander in charge of training and proficiency of missile crews at Minot, was relieved of duty, citing a “loss of confidence” in his leadership.
Launch operations were not part of the Malmstrom inspection failure, Kowalski said.
The trouble at Minot was the latest in a longer series of setbacks for the Air Force’s nuclear mission, highlighted by a 2008 Pentagon advisory-group report that found a “dramatic and unacceptable decline” in the Air Force’s commitment to the mission, which has its origins in a Cold War standoff with the former Soviet Union.
After a series of nuclear embarrassments in 2008 — including the inadvertent transport of six nuclear-tipped missiles on a B-52 bomber, whose pilot did not know they were aboard when he flew from Minot to Barksdale Air Force Base, La. — then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates fired the top two Air Force officials.
Kowalski’s command was created in late 2009 as part of an effort to fix what was broken in the nuclear force. In Tuesday’s interview, he said he is encouraged that inspections after 2009 began finding an increasing number of problems at the ICBM wings, followed by a decrease since 2011.
He said this tells him that the Air Force has come up with a more rigorous, effective means of inspecting and that they are spurring change.
“This is a difficult inspection,” he said, so occasional failures do not point to a systemic failure to adhere to safety and security regulations.
Nuclear-missile unit fails security test
What bothers me about this is the government secrecy. I doubt that we need a whole bunch of nuclear missiles pointed at the Soviet Union to protect us from cut rate commie dictators.
"The whole aim of practical politics
is to keep the populace alarmed (and
hence clamorous to be led to safety)
by menacing it with an endless series
of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
And that all of this is mostly a jobs program for the Generals and Admirals that run things along with a corporate welfare program for the corporations in the military industrial complex.
¿Como se dice Nazi en Español? ¡¡¡John Kerry!!!
Source
EU recaba información para garantizar seguridad: Kerry
El secretario de Estado estadounidense justificó los programas de espionaje de su país y reiteró que éstos se realizan dentro del marco jurídico.
El secretario de Estado de Estados Unidos, John Kerry, respondió a las quejas brasileñas sobre el espionaje global y dijo que su país seguirá haciendo "lo necesario" para preservar la "seguridad" de los estadounidenses y "del mundo en general".
En una rueda de prensa junto al canciller brasileño, Antonio Patriota, quien reiteró el malestar que causaron en su país las denuncias del espionaje estadounidense, Kerry aseguró que Washington hará "lo necesario para que esos problemas no interfieran en las relaciones" y sostuvo que EU actúa "dentro de las leyes".
Kerry explicó que no podría "discutir cuestiones operacionales" relativas a la "seguridad nacional" en una rueda de prensa, pero aseguró que todas las actividades de las agencias estadounidenses se dan en los marcos de leyes aprobadas "por el Congreso nacional después de los ataques del 11 de septiembre" de 2001.
Según Kerry, "Estados Unidos recoge información de inteligencia para proteger a sus ciudadanos, como hacen todas las naciones del mundo, y lo hace dentro de las leyes".
Explicó que, en el caso de Brasil, "se seguirá dialogando para que haya certezas y el gobierno entienda y esté de acuerdo" con lo que Estados Unidos "debe hacer para garantizar su seguridad y la seguridad del mundo en general".
Subrayó además que, "en los últimos años, un cierto número de grupos (terroristas) han atentado contra los intereses no sólo de Estados Unidos, sino también de otros países", y que el gobierno de Barack Obama "sólo está intentando evitar que esas cosas ocurran".
Según Kerry, Brasil y Estados Unidos deben seguir "trabajando juntos" y "concentrarse" en las "realidades más importantes de las relaciones bilaterales". Entre ellas citó la promoción de "los valores democráticos", el "empeño por mejorar la vida de nuestras sociedades", el fomento del comercio y las relaciones económicas o la cooperación en áreas como ciencia y tecnología.
Government surveillance spurs Americans to fight back
SourceGovernment surveillance spurs Americans to fight back
By Dana Priest, Published: August 14 E-mail the writer
At the Pentagon and CIA, they are known as “countermeasures,” the jargony adaptation of Newton’s Third Law: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
The U.S. Army in Iraq jammed cellphones to counter deadly roadside bombs triggered by calls.
Osama bin Laden switched to carrier pigeons when spy agencies got good at eavesdropping on al-Qaeda communications.
And Adam Harvey revved up his assembly line to foil — or at least critique — the National Security Agency’s collection of Americans’ phone records in the name of counterterrorism.
Harvey is an artist and privacy advocate in New York. His “privacy protection” creations, which include “anti-drone garments” that he says thwart thermal imaging cameras, have attracted the attention of guerrilla fashionistas and at least one intelligence agency. (He won’t say which one or share the e-mail the agency sent him because he’s so concerned about it.)
His latest gadget, to be sent to customers Sept. 20, is a metallized fabric case that he says shields a cellphone from electronic poaching by the government, by phone companies, by whomever.
“The thing I’m worried about is creating a large database of all my movements and not knowing what it’s used for,” said Harvey, 32, who has been in the habit of turning his phone off and taking out the battery to counter companies he believes already know too much about him. [If the phone has a large capacitor in it, the phone will continue to operate for some time even if the battery is removed]
“When you give up your privacy, it can make anyone vulnerable to manipulation,” he said.
A tradition of resistance
Harvey’s creations are the latest in a typically American cultural reaction to perceived or real government intrusiveness that is as old as government surveillance of citizens.
“It reflects a growing cultural influence and critique about the scope of government activity,” Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington-based research and advocacy group, said of Harvey’s work. “Everybody carries some degree of paranoia. And maybe he’s not the only one who should be worried. Maybe it’s anyone who has an e-mail, cellphone or Zip code.”
In 2006, Rotenberg’s organization and its supporters protested a new U.S. electronic passport whose embedded microchip can be read from a distance. They handed out “personal passport protectors” — plastic bags and aluminum foil to wrap the passport and make the chip unreadable. Afterward, the government tweaked the technology to make the passport harder to read by unauthorized persons.
When the Transportation Security Administration adopted body scanners at airports, activists wrote the Fourth Amendment on their underwear in metallic paint readable by the new devices.
The U.S. government’s ever-expanding use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), some armed with Hellfire missiles, has provoked a mini-industry of cultural countermeasures, local government regulations and splashy, nonlethal uses.
In San Francisco, a drone delivered an engagement ring to a wedding proposal. In Philadelphia, a dry cleaner used the aircraft to carry clean shirts to customers. In Stockholm, an artist designed a clown-faced “peace drone” that dispenses the painkiller oxycodone.
A growing concern about drones in U.S. airspace has prompted legal countermeasures. In the small Colorado town of Deer Trail, the town board recently split 3 to 3 on an ordinance that would have approved drone-hunting licenses and bounties for shooting them. Residents will vote on the measure in November.
It began with one man’s campaign. “We don’t want drones in town,” Phillip Steel told Denver TV station ABC7. “They fly in town, they get shot down.”
The Federal Aviation Administration reacted with a warning about the injury risks of shooting objects out of the sky.
An Oklahoma state representative wants to limit police access to surveillance drones to certain situations, such as finding a missing child.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a nemesis of drone surveillance and critic of domestic surveillance in general, managed to get the FBI to tell him it had used surveillance drones in eight criminal cases and two national security cases.
“None of the UAVs used by the FBI are armed with either lethal or non-lethal weapons, and the FBI has no plans to use weapons with UAVs,” an FBI letter to Paul stated last month. “The FBI does not use UAVs to conduct ‘bulk’ surveillance or to conduct general surveillance not related to an investigation or assessment.”
Every drone operation is done by the book, with the proper approvals, the letter said.
To protect and provoke
Harvey’s inspiration for his first privacy project, a kind of facial camouflage, did not originate with something as serious as the possibility of drone warfare. It was inspired by club parties. It bothered him that someone could easily take pictures of people in their most unguarded moments and post the photos online, without permission, perhaps never to be erased.
Developed as his master’s thesis at New York University, CV Dazzle, named after a type of ship camo used during World War II, is face paint designed to make features undetectable by computer vision algorithms, which are used in computerized facial recognition.
From there he moved into a line of “anti-drone” garments made of a metallized fabric that traps body heat. It is meant to cloak heat signatures from the prying eyes of thermal imaging devices sometimes mounted on drones and police surveillance aircraft. To be provocative, the clothes come in only three styles: a burqa, a hijab and a hoodie.
His customer base for the few he has sold so far has been “niche and fashion,” Harvey said. He said he does not intend to sell his stealthwear to anyone with nefarious motives: “I’m mostly interested in the conversations it generates.”
The NSA declined to comment on Harvey’s work, as did the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Dickie Richards, who retired from the NSA after 41 years of service, said the garments and phone case could be “somewhat effective” but that bending the material could easily create gaps through which electronic signals or heat could escape. “It’s much better than wearing an aluminum cap, though,” he laughed.
If the government targets someone, he added, such countermeasures would be useless against the many tools officials could bring to bear. “It could be effective if they’re a target of convenience,” he acknowledged.
Harvey’s latest invention, the phone case, was almost ready for mass production when Edward Snowden released his trove of classified NSA documents and the world learned just how much phone and e-mail traffic the spy agency was vacuuming up every day. Taking advantage of the news, Harvey rushed to begin an online Kickstarter fundraising campaign ahead of schedule.
The Kickstarter campaign went active Aug. 2 with a goal of $35,000, which would allow Harvey and his colleague, Johanna Bloomfield, to produce and market the product in larger quantities. Halfway through the campaign, they have raised more than $44,000.
Sidewalk chalk could land four protestors in jail for a year
Don't these pigs have any real criminals to hunt down????I remember we had an anti-war protest in Phoenix and the government used the same convoluted logic about a chalk drawing made on the sidewalk.
They also said the drawing would cost thousands of dollars to clean up, when in fact 5 minutes with a hose and water is all it would take to clean up the drawing.
![Not one single cop in [Las Vegas, Nevada] Metro's entire history has been charged after shooting someone. Even if that person was unarmed and/or innocent](0_____photos/chalk_cop_protest.jpg)
Sidewalk chalk could land four protestors in jail for a year
By FRANCIS MCCABE
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Four people could face up to a year in jail for chalking up city sidewalks while protesting police misconduct.
Kelly Wayne Patterson, 44, Brian Ballentine, 31, Hailee Jewell, 18, and Catalino de la Cruz Dazo Jr., 20, face multiple gross misdemeanor counts of placing graffiti or defacing property and conspiracy to commit placing graffiti.
If convicted, they could face probation, a suspended driver’s license, community service and up to a year in the Clark County Detention Center.
The four protesters, affiliated with Nevada Cop Block and Sunset Activist Collective, used washable colored chalk in July to write critical statements of police on the sidewalks outside the Metropolitan Police Department’s headquarters and in front of the Regional Justice Center.
Demonstrating against police brutality and officer-involved shootings in Las Vegas, the protesters say they were practicing free speech and should not face charges.
District Attorney Steve Wolfson is taking the case seriously.
“This is not a kid drawing with a piece of chalk on the sidewalk. These are adults who used chalk to draw profanity,” he said. “And there is a law on the books that make it a crime to engage in this activity.”
One statement read: “Not one single cop in Metro’s entire history has been charged after shooting someone. Even if that person was unarmed and/or innocent.”
Another was: “(Expletive) the police.”
Officers on July 13 watched the protesters write statements on the sidewalk and told them they were violating anti-graffiti laws, according to police reports and court documents.
After the protest, Patterson and Ballentine were cited, and police called the city graffiti abatement team, which used high-powered washers to clean the dusty words.
Days later, before a scheduled court hearing on the citation the protesters again used colored chalk, typically made from a composite of calcium sulfate, as part of their protest outside the Regional Justice Center.
One statement read: “(Expletive) Pigs.”
An unknown woman dumped coffee on it, washing it away, according to police who witnessed the protest.
According to documents, Patterson then wrote on the coffee-stained ground, “(Expletive) the police.”
Police documented the evidence, called the city’s graffiti abatement team and began exhaustive research about the perils of power washing to sidewalks, including that it “artificially erodes and abrades the concrete’s surface thereby adding to the unnecessary wear and tear.”
Detailed police reports said the city crew cost $1,550 to clean both crime scenes.
The reports did not include the cost of the coffee used to clean one of the statements. It’s unclear whether it was a small, medium or large coffee.
Lawyer Robert Langford called the case preposterous and is representing the defendants pro bono.
“Under that standard, any kid that does hopscotch patterns on the sidewalk can be guilty of the same crime,” Langford said.
The veteran defense lawyer added, “Justice in this case is that the case should be dismissed. They were engaged in constitutionally protected First Amendment activity. Period. They have the right to engage in that type of protest. This was something that was harmless.”
Langford accused law enforcement officials of inflating the cost of the cleanup to justify the arrest and incarceration until bail was posted, instead of simply issuing a citation.
Part of his defense will be to show that the chalk could have been cleaned up at a lessor cost.
“My bet is a good stiff broom would have done the same thing,” he said.
By employing the power washing crew at a cost of more than $250, the graffiti charge was elevated from a misdemeanor to a gross misdemeanor, which could mean a stiffer sentence if they are convicted.
Langford said the amount of time, money and other taxpayer resources spent on the case is ridiculous. And all “because the bullies at the Las Vegas police department wanted to hurt people who wanted to criticize them. That’s, in the final analysis, what this case is about.”
Langford added he’s considering filing a federal civil rights lawsuit on behalf of the defendants.
“Public property is being defaced with profanity,” Wolfson said. “That’s what it comes down to.”
A preliminary hearing is set for December.
Contact reporter Francis McCabe at fmccabe@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039.
Can Obama write his own laws?
I have been criticized by some phony baloney atheist Libertarians in Tucson for calling Bush and Obama Emperor Bush and Emperor Obama. But I think this article justifies me calling Obama and Bush the American Emperor.Can Obama write his own laws?
By Charles Krauthammer, Published: August 15
As a reaction to the crack epidemic of the 1980s, many federal drug laws carry strict mandatory sentences. This has stirred unease in Congress and sparked a bipartisan effort to revise and relax some of the more draconian laws.
Traditionally — meaning before Barack Obama — that’s how laws were changed: We have a problem, we hold hearings, we find some new arrangement ratified by Congress and signed by the president.
That was then. On Monday, Attorney General Eric Holder, a liberal in a hurry, ordered all U.S. attorneys to simply stop charging nonviolent, non-gang-related drug defendants with crimes that, while fitting the offense, carry mandatory sentences. Find some lesser, non-triggering charge. How might you do that? Withhold evidence — for example, the amount of dope involved.
In other words, evade the law, by deceiving the court if necessary. “If the companies that I represent in federal criminal cases” did that, said former deputy attorney general George Terwilliger, “they could be charged with a felony.”
But such niceties must not stand in the way of an administration’s agenda. Indeed, the very next day, it was revealed that the administration had unilaterally waived Obamacare’s cap on a patient’s annual out-of-pocket expenses — a one-year exemption for selected health insurers that is nowhere permitted in the law. It was simply decreed by an obscure Labor Department regulation.
Which followed a presidentially directed 70-plus percent subsidy for the insurance premiums paid by congressmen and their personal staffs — under a law that denies subsidies for anyone that well-off.
Which came just a month after the administration’s equally lawless suspension of one of the cornerstones of Obamacare: the employer mandate.
Which followed hundreds of Obamacare waivers granted by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to selected businesses, unions and other well-lobbied, very special interests.
Nor is this kind of rule-by-decree restricted to health care. In 2012, the immigration service was ordered to cease proceedings against young illegal immigrants brought here as children. Congress had refused to pass such a law (the DREAM Act) just 18 months earlier. Obama himself had repeatedly said that the Constitution forbade him from enacting it without Congress. But with the fast approach of an election that could hinge on the Hispanic vote, Obama did exactly that. Unilaterally.
The point is not what you think about the merits of the DREAM Act. Or of mandatory drug sentences. Or of subsidizing health care premiums for $175,000-a-year members of Congress. Or even whether you think governors should be allowed to weaken the work requirements for welfare recipients — an authority the administration granted last year in clear violation of section 407 of the landmark Clinton-Gingrich welfare reform of 1996.
The point is whether a president, charged with faithfully executing the laws that Congress enacts, may create, ignore, suspend and/or amend the law at will. Presidents are arguably permitted to refuse to enforce laws they consider unconstitutional (the basis for so many of George W. Bush’s so-called signing statements). But presidents are forbidden from doing so for reasons of mere policy — the reason for every Obama violation listed above.
Such gross executive usurpation disdains the Constitution. It mocks the separation of powers. And most consequentially, it introduces a fatal instability into law itself. If the law is not what is plainly written, but is whatever the president and his agents decide, what’s left of the law?
The problem is not just uncertain enforcement but the undermining of the very creation of new law. What’s the point of the whole legislative process — of crafting various provisions through give-and-take negotiation — if you cannot rely on the fixity of the final product, on the assurance that the provisions bargained for by both sides will be carried out?
Consider immigration reform, now in gestation. The essence of any deal would be legalization in return for strict border enforcement. If some such legislative compromise is struck, what confidence can anyone have in it — if the president can unilaterally alter whatever (enforcement) provisions he never liked in the first place?
Yet this president is not only untroubled by what he’s doing, but open and rather proud. As he tells cheering crowds on his never-ending campaign-style tours: I am going to do X — and I’m not going to wait for Congress.
That’s caudillo talk. That’s banana republic stuff. In this country, the president is required to win the consent of Congress first.
At stake is not some constitutional curlicue. At stake is whether the laws are the law. And whether presidents get to write their own.
Read more from Charles Krauthammer’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
Jesus Bombs You???
I saw this image of Jesus nailed to an American fighter plan in a Mexican newspaper. Who knows what it means, but I thought it was pretty cool!!!!
The Phoenix Police Union is the PROBLEM
Without Sal DiCiccio, Phoenix could become Detroit
SourceWithout Sal DiCiccio, Phoenix could become Detroit
Keating: Rallying against unions will keep city vibrant
By James Keating My Turn Mon Aug 19, 2013 11:09 AM
The decision that voters in Phoenix City Council District 6 make on Aug. 27 will determine whether we remain a great city for generations or embark on the path of decline already laid out by cities like Detroit.
Cities become and remain great when voters elect responsible, independent leaders. The opposite is also true. Great cities decline when voters elect candidates more beholden to public-sector unions than to the people they were elected to serve.
We will either vote for responsible fiscal management and opportunity under Councilman Sal DiCiccio, or we will choose union-dominated decisions and decline under Karlene Keogh Parks.
The recent recession has made it abundantly clear that union-driven spending commitments and poor planning, coupled with unreasonable investment expectations, also union driven, will wreak havoc on even the best managed city budgets. In those cities where public-sector unions have been left unchecked by leaders like Sal DiCiccio, the result has been disaster.
The story goes like this. Unions influence voters to elect their chosen candidates to public office (in this case, Keogh Parks). Those candidates, now in office, reward that support by voting to increase public-sector employee salary, health and pension benefits.
The city spends more and more on public-employee commitments and less and less on schools, vital infrastructure and other pro-growth investments. Eventually, tax rates are raised to fill the ever-deepening hole. Finally, industry and talent flee to better managed climates, employment rates drop and overall tax revenue declines.
The dominoes are already falling: Detroit, Harrisburg, Penn., and Stockton and San Bernadino, Calif., are just a few early examples of what happens to cities run by union-dominated officials.
Phoenix is no exception. According to the 2012 Phoenix Annual Financial Report the total unfunded liability for city pensions, including public safety, is more than $2.5 billion.
If the unions are successful in defeating Sal DiCiccio in this election, current and future council members will almost certainly be less willing to stand up to them. Over time, our liabilities will outpace our tax revenues, and Phoenix will begin its journey down the path of decline.
Phoenix needs Sal DiCiccio. He is committed to ensuring that the city your children inherit will be more vibrant and full of opportunity than the one we are fortunate to share today. He has shown both the foresight to recognize our challenges and the courage to speak out on them.
We all say we want honest politicians who are willing to do what is right even if it may not be easy or in their own best interest. We all know we must be able to trust our elected officials to responsibly manage our city's -- and our children's -- future.
The responsible District 6 vote is for Sal DiCiccio. If not, we will get what we deserve. Just ask Detroit.
James Keating is CEO of The Keating Group, which is based on Phoenix's District 6.
House panel withheld document on NSA surveillance
SourceHouse panel withheld document on NSA surveillance program from members
By Peter Wallsten, Published: August 16 E-mail the writer
A letter drafted by the Obama administration specifically to inform Congress of the government’s mass collection of Americans’ telephone communications data was withheld from lawmakers by leaders of the House Intelligence Committee in the months before a key vote affecting the future of the program.
The February 2011 document was declassified last month and has been cited repeatedly by administration officials and legislative leaders as evidence that the surveillance program had been properly examined by Congress as part of an aggressive system of checks and balances.
A cover letter to the House and Senate intelligence committees that was sent with the document asked the leaders of each panel to share the written material with all members of Congress.
Ronald Weich, who was an assistant attorney general at the time, wrote that making the material available to Congress would be an “effective way to inform the legislative debate about reauthorization” of the provision of the Patriot Act that served as the legal basis for the phone surveillance. A similar document was available to all members of Congress in 2009, prior to a 2010 reauthorization vote.
But the House Intelligence Committee opted against making the 2011 document widely available. Instead, the committee invited all 435 House members to attend classified briefings where the program was discussed — briefings that critics say were vague and uninformative.
Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), who has emerged as a leading critic of the National Security Agency program, said he and dozens of other members elected in 2010 did not have access to the information they needed to fully understand the program until the leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
The withheld document “doesn’t provide enough details, but it would have at least been a starting point to ask questions,” Amash said. He said confronting intelligence officials during the briefings was “like a game of 20 questions,” and added: “If you don’t know about the program, you don’t know what to ask about.”
A spokeswoman for the House committee, Susan Phalen, declined to say whether the panel had voted to withhold the letter or if the decision was made by Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.).
“Because the letter by itself did not fully explain the programs, the Committee offered classified briefings, open to all Members of Congress, that not only covered all of the material in the letter but also provided much more detail in an interactive format with briefers available to fully answer any Members’ questions,” Phalen wrote in an e-mail. “The discussion of the letter not being distributed is a side issue intended to give the false impression that Congress was denied information. That is not the case.”
The dispute over the 2011 document comes amid growing questions about the ability of Congress and the judiciary to perform their roles in overseeing the country’s vast intelligence system, with lawmakers on key oversight committees and the chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court expressing concerns in recent days.
The five-page document, headlined “Report of the National Security Agency’s Bulk Collection Programs for USA PATRIOT Act Reauthorization,” was posted online by the government in a redacted form last month.
A white paper issued by the Obama administration last week noted that lawmakers had been granted access to a similar document in 2009. The white paper credits the chairs of the House and Senate committees for sharing the document in 2009. A footnote in the white paper says the 2011 document was made available to all senators — but is notably silent on the House.
Alice Crites contributed to this report.
Government employees get a slap on the wrist for their crimes????
I could care less about the tax evasion charges, I am angry about the $18 million he screwed the Navy out of.The Associated Press
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – An 82-year-old man convicted of tax evasion was sentenced Friday to two years of home confinement for his role in a kickback scheme that cost the U.S. Navy $18 million.
The judge said she spared Ralph Mariano Jr. prison time because of his age and because it would cost taxpayers more to keep him behind bars.
Mariano, of North Providence, is the father of one of the scheme's admitted ringleaders, Ralph M. Mariano, a former civilian employee of the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Virginia. The younger Mariano has pleaded guilty to using his position to add money to contracts held by Georgia-based contractor Advanced Solutions for Tomorrow, or ASFT. In return, the contractor funneled kickbacks to the elder Mariano, corrupt subcontractors and others.
The elder Mariano is the first of six people convicted in the federal investigation into the scheme to be sentenced.
Prosecutors said he received $2.5 million in payments from a subcontractor over 8 years. He was charged only for the years 2006 through 2009, and received $1.4 million during that time, never reporting the income on his tax returns. Prosecutors calculated that he failed to pay $488,000 in federal taxes during those years.
During Friday's sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Mary Lisi asked Mariano why he evaded taxes. He said he had retired with no pension, then acknowledged that he had lost hundreds of thousands of dollars gambling.
"I'm sorry all this happened, because of my family, what I put them through. I do apologize to the court," he said.
Lisi told Mariano it is her usual practice to sentence people to prison when they are convicted of tax evasion, because it is a crime against everyone.
"In order for the system to work, we rely on the honesty of the taxpayer," she said. "All of us have to make up for you not paying."
Prosecutors had recommended against imprisonment because of the cost and Lisi agreed, sentencing him to four years' probation, two of those to be spent on home confinement.
The others who have pleaded guilty in the case are Mariano's son; the son's girlfriend, Mary O'Rourke, a former executive based at ASFT's office in Middletown, R.I.; ASFT's founder, Anjan Dutta-Gupta of Roswell, Ga.; former ASFT executive Patrick Nagle of Marietta, Ga.; and ASFT subcontractor Russell Spencer. ASFT has gone out of business.
The five are scheduled to be sentenced in federal court in Providence in October.
A pending federal whistle-blower lawsuit alleges similar illegal conduct by the younger Mariano, Dutta-Gupta, Spencer, Nagle and others. The 2006 complaint, first filed under seal in Georgia and then transferred to Rhode Island and unsealed, was made under a rule that allows private citizens to sue on the government's behalf. The government this month said it would intervene in a portion of the claims brought in the lawsuit.
Mexico’s new government follows old drug war strategy
Mexico’s new government follows old drug war strategyI bet it's because of all that cold hard CASH the American government gives to Mexico to carry our OUR war on drugs.
"Before leaving office, Calderon repeatedly touted the fact that his forces had captured 25 of Mexico’s 37 most-wanted drug lords, a strategy backed by the U.S. government with hundreds of millions of dollars in funding and close cooperation with American law-enforcement, military and intelligence agencies"
Mexico’s new gov’t follows old drug war strategy
Associated Press Sun Aug 18, 2013 12:36 PM
MEXICO CITY — With the capture of two top drug lords in little more than a month, the new government of President Enrique Pena Nieto is following an old strategy it has openly criticized for causing more violence and crime.
Mario Armando Ramirez Trevino, a top leader of Mexico’s Gulf Cartel, was detained Saturday in a military operation near the Texas border, just weeks after the arrest of the leader of the brutal Zetas cartel near another border city, Nuevo Laredo.
Interior Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong came to his post last December saying the strategy of former President Felipe Calderon to focus on cartel leadership only made the drug gangs more dangerous. The new administration, he said, would focus less on leadership and more on reducing violence.
Yet the new strategy appears almost identical to the old. The captures of Ramirez and top Zeta Miguel Angel Trevino Morales could cause a new spike in violence with battles for leadership of Mexico’s two major cartels.
“The strategy of the military is exactly the same,” Raul Benitez, a security expert at Mexico’s National Autonomous University, said Sunday. “It’s not a failure of the new government. It’s the reality they face … Changing strategy is a very slow process. In the short term, you have to act against the drug-trafficking leaders.”
Ramirez, a drug boss in Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, Texas, had been vying to take over the cartel since the arrest of the Gulf’s top capo, Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sanchez, alias “El Coss,” last September. Some say he succeeded by reportedly killing his main Gulf rival, Miguel Villarreal, known as “Gringo Mike,” in a gunbattle in March. Villarreal’s death is still disputed by some.
The U.S. State Department also offered a reward of $5 million for the capture of Ramirez for several federal drug violations.
He was taken down during a major military offensive that involved air and ground forces in Rio Bravo, according to the Tamaulipas state government.
The once-powerful Gulf Cartel still controls most of the cocaine and marijuana trafficking through the Matamoros corridor across the border from Brownsville, Texas, and has an international reach into Central America and beyond. But the cartel has been plagued by infighting since Costilla’s arrest, while also being under attack in its home territory by its former security arm, the Zetas.
The split is blamed for much of the violence in Reynosa, where there have been regular, public shootouts between Gulf factions and authorities in the last six months. The factions are willing to fight for the largest piece of the lucrative business of transporting illegal drugs to the biggest market, the United States. Mexico continues to be the No. 1 foreign supplier of marijuana and methamphetamines to the U.S. An estimated 93 percent of South American cocaine headed to the U.S. travels through Mexico, according to 2010 FBI statistics.
Before leaving office, Calderon repeatedly touted the fact that his forces had captured 25 of Mexico’s 37 most-wanted drug lords, a strategy backed by the U.S. government with hundreds of millions of dollars in funding and close cooperation with American law-enforcement, military and intelligence agencies.
With that strategy, Osorio Chong said, “we have moved from a scheme of vertical leadership to a horizontal one that has made them more violent and much more dangerous.”
The new government also said it was going to limit the widespread and casual access that U.S. agents had to Mexican forces under Calderon.
But security analysts agree that close cooperation between the Mexican military and the U.S. continues along the border, despite messages from Mexico City. The coordinated efforts to track and capture Zeta leader Trevino had started under Calderon and continued, said George Grayson, a College of William & Mary professor who has written extensively on the Gulf and Zetas cartels.
“Enrique Pena Nieto would really like to not be going after capos,” Grayson said Sunday. “He wants to change the agenda. He doesn’t want the headlines to be about capos. But the situation in Morelos and Michoacan (states), and now the takedowns in the north have kept the capos on the front pages.”
Violence also continues in the western state of Michoacan near the border of Jalisco state, where two other cartels fight for territory.
The administration tactic again has mirrored that of Calderon, sending more troops and federal police to try to regain control of the region, so far with little result.
Nine bodies, hands bound and shot, were found on an abandoned property near the town of Buenavista Tomatlan in Michoacan on Saturday. At least 23 bodies in total were found, counting those in neighboring Guerrero state, where drug cartels, vigilantes and security forces also have been fighting for much of the year.
Meanwhile, the Pena Nieto government continues to say its focus is on crime prevention to bring down violence. But there is very little evidence so far.
“It’s a campaign slogan, a political discourse designed to convince the public,” Benitez said. “They’re giving very few resources to the prevention campaign.”
Navy changes how alcohol is sold on-base
Didn't the government have a similar ban on booze called the "Prohibition" which was a dismal failure???Navy changes how alcohol is sold on-base
By Brock Vergakis Associated Press Sat Aug 17, 2013 11:04 AM
NAVAL STATION NORFOLK, Va. — On the world’s largest naval base, sailors can pull into a gas station and buy a bottle of liquor before sunrise.
But as the Navy works to curb alcohol abuse in a push reduce sexual assaults and other crimes, the days of picking up a bottle of Kahlua along with a cup of coffee are coming to an end.
The Navy’s top admiral has ordered a series of changes to the way the Navy sells booze. Chief among them, the Navy will stop selling liquor at its mini marts and prohibit the sale of alcohol at any of its stores from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
“It’s not going to fix everything, but it is a real step in the right direction,” said David Jernigan, Johns Hopkins University’s director of the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth. “Historically, the military, as elsewhere, has viewed these problems as individual problems to be dealt with by identifying the individual with the problem. While that’s important, the research shows it’s much more effective actually to look at it as a population problem and to deal with things that are affecting everybody across the population.”
The changes are the latest addition to a broader, long-standing alcohol education and awareness program that appears to have had some success. Throughout the Navy, the number of alcohol-related criminal offenses dropped from 5,950 in the 2007 fiscal year to 4,216 in the 2012 fiscal year. The number of DUI offenses dropped from 2,025 to 1,218 during that same period, according to Navy Personnel Command.
Liquor will still be sold on U.S. bases at a discount of up to 10 percent for what it can be bought at in a civilian store, but sales will be limited to dedicated package stores or exchanges that sell a wide variety of items.
At Naval Station Norfolk, the main exchange is comparable to a small shopping mall that sells clothing, electronics and jewelry, among other things, at a discount. At smaller naval bases, the exchanges aren’t as sprawling but still often have the feel of big-box retail. While hours at those stores vary, most open at 9 a.m. close by 9 p.m.
The Navy’s minimarts at the Norfolk base currently start selling liquor as early as 5 a.m. That’s five hours earlier than people can buy at Virginia’s state-run ABC stores off-base that are typically open from from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays.
Jernigan said a growing preference among young people for distilled spirits over beer and wine means the Navy’s moves could be particularly helpful.
“But that said, alcohol is alcohol, so reducing the availability of one kind is a step in the right direction, but you can certainly get just as impaired from drinking beer and wine as you can from distilled spirits,” he said.
In the 2012 fiscal year, the Navy reported $91.9 million in distilled spirits sales, compared with $39.3 million in wine and $62.3 million in beer. The Navy uses 70 percent of the profits from its sales of alcoholic and non-alcoholic products to support morale, welfare and recreation programs.
Chief of Naval Operations Jonathan Greenert also ordered the exchanges to display alcohol only in the rear of its stores. The new rules are set to take effect by mid-October.
Greenert’s order on alcohol sales was issued the same day in late July the Navy unveiled other initiatives to battle sexual assaults that range from hiring more criminal investigators to installing better lighting on bases.
The effort follows a Pentagon report, released in May, that estimates as many as 26,000 service members may have been sexually assaulted last year.
Alcohol is often involved. In a survey, 55 percent of Navy women said they or the offender had consumed alcohol before unwanted sexual contact.
Navy officials have stressed they’re not trying to keep sailors from drinking, but they want them to do so responsibly.
The Navy is already giving many sailors random alcohol-detection tests when they report for duty, and soon the devices will be found on store shelves for personal use. The single-use product will sell for $1.99.
Jernigan suggested the Navy may want to eliminate its discounts on alcohol — just as it recently did with tobacco — if it wants to make further strides.
Not all sailors think the new rules will help.
“If people are going to drink, they’re still going to buy it wherever,” Seaman Bryan Free said after buying a bottle of vodka from a Naval Station Norfolk gas station. “So if they take it out of here, it’s not going to do nothing because they’re going to go to the package store right out of base. That’s usually where everybody gets it. So it doesn’t really matter.”
Most of the Navy’s large bases are in urban areas with plenty of convenience and grocery stores nearby.
And in the Navy, on-base housing options are typically limited, leading Free and other sailors commute to work rather than living in barracks.
Robert Parker, a University of California at Riverside sociology professor who has studied the links between alcohol and crime, said restricting on-base alcohol sales should help even if there are places to buy it nearby.
“If you make something like alcohol harder to get, you restrict the hours, you restrict the places it can be bought, then generally consumption goes down in that community or that area because people have a lot of things to do in addition to buying alcohol,” Parker said. “There will be some individuals that will be determined no matter what, and they’ll travel 100 miles to buy a six pack, but most people won’t do that.
Bradley Manning sentenced to 35 years
What rubbish. Bradley Manning isn't a criminal, he is a patriot. He should be given a medal and let out of prison.While Bradley Manning is guilty as hell of all the charges, the jury should have voted to acquit him.
Sure he committed a few victimless crimes, but he only did it to expose even worse crimes our government masters have committed.
The same goes for Edward Snowden and Julian Assange. They are all freedom fighters who should be given medals, not time in prison.
The real criminals are the members of the US Congress, the US Senate and Presidents Obama and Bush who allowed the American government to flush the Bill of Rights down the toilet and turn Amerika into a police state.
Bradley Manning sentenced to 35 years
By Julie Tate, Updated: Wednesday, August 21, 8:17 AM E-mail the writer
A military judge on Wednesday morning sentenced Army Pfc. Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison for leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks.
Manning, 25, was convicted last month of multiple charges, including violations of the Espionage Act for copying and disseminating the documents while serving as an intelligence analyst at a forward operating base in Iraq. He faced up to 90 years in prison.
Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg says Bradley Manning did not deserve any prison time.
Manning is required to serve one-third of the sentence, minus three and half years of time served, before he is eligible for parole. That will be in eight years when he is 33.
Judge Denise Lind, an Army colonel, said Manning was dishonorably discharged. He was also reduced in rank and forfeits all pay.
Manning stood at attention, flanked by his attorneys, to hear the verdict with his aunt, Debra Van Alstyne, sitting behind him. He did not appear to react when the sentence was read.
As Manning was escorted out of the packed courtroom, more than half a dozen supporters shouted out to him, “We’ll keep fighting for you, Bradley! You’re our hero!”
The decision was immediately condemned by the American Civil Liberties Union.
“When a soldier who shared information with the press and public is punished far more harshly than others who tortured prisoners and killed civilians, something is seriously wrong with our justice system,” said Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project.
The government had asked the judge to sentence Manning to 60 years. “There is value in deterrence, your honor; this court must send a message to any soldier contemplating stealing classified information,” said Capt. Joe Morrow, a military prosecutor. “National security crimes that undermine the entire system must be taken seriously.”
Defense lawyer David Coombs portrayed Manning as a well-intentioned but isolated soldier with gender identification issues, and he asked Lind to impose “a sentence that allows him to have a life.”
“He cares about human life,” said Coombs as the sentencing phase of the court-martial at Fort Meade ended last week. “His biggest crime was he cared about the loss of life he was seeing and was struggling with it.”
Manning also addressed the court and apologized for his actions, saying he was “sorry that I hurt the United States.”
Manning will receive a credit of 1,293 days for the time he has been confined prior to the sentence, including 112 days of credit for abusive treatment he was subjected to in the brig at the Quantico Marine Base.
Manning transmitted the first documents to WikiLeaks in February 2010, sending what came to be known as the Iraq and Afghanistan “War Logs” — field reports from across both theaters. Manning’s lawyers said he had become disillusioned by what he was seeing in Iraq and hoped that the public release of the secret material would prompt greater public understanding of the wars.
Manning established a relationship online with a person who is thought to be Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. As their personal correspondence deepened, Manning continued to transmit more material, including assessments of detainees at Guantanamo Bay and an enormous cache of diplomatic cables. He also leaked a video that showed a U.S. Apache helicopter in Baghdad opening fire on a group of Iraqis, including two journalists and children, that the helicopter crew believed to be insurgents.
According to his lawyers, Manning became more and more stressed in Iraq, wrestling with his sexuality and the breakup of a relationship. At one point, in April 2010, he sent an e-mail to a superior with the subject line “My Problem” and a photo of himself wearing a blond wig and lipstick.
On May 7, Manning was found on the floor of a supply room with a knife at his feet. After some brief counseling, he was returned to his workstation. Later that same day, he struck a fellow soldier and was removed permanently from the secure environment where he worked.
Following these events, Manning boasted to hacker Adrian Lamo that he had been working with WikiLeaks. After engaging Manning for several days, Lamo informed Army investigators and the FBI about the breach of information and provided them with his chat logs with Manning.
Manning was arrested in Iraq on May 27, 2010.
Legal proceedings against Manning began in December 2011 and, in February of this year, Manning pleaded guilty to 10 lesser included charges. The trial portion of the proceedings began June 3, and on July 30, Lind found Manning guilty of 20 of the 22 charges he faced.
NSA can ‘reach roughly 75% of all U.S. Internet traffic’
Report: NSA can ‘reach roughly 75% of all U.S. Internet traffic’Does anybody remembers the FBI program "carnivore"??? It sounds like a base for all this stuff. I remember the "carnivore" software being talked about around 1996, 1997 in the early internet days.
According to those stories "carnivore" was placed by the FBI in servers across the country and just looked at all the emails and data that passed thru saving any data it found which had the keywords it was looking for.
Report: NSA can ‘reach roughly 75% of all U.S. Internet traffic’
By Timothy B. Lee, Published: August 20 at 11:49 pm
The U.S. surveillance state, or at least the parts the public knows about, keeps getting bigger. Initial leaks by Ed Snowden indicated that the National Security Agency was collecting telephone metadata and had a program called PRISM to seek information from the servers of certain major Internet companies. Last month, the Guardian reported the existence of XKeyscore, an NSA program that allows NSA analysts to intercept the contents of e-mail and other online communications. But previous reporting had suggested that the NSA’s Internet interception capabilities were concentrated outside the borders of the United States.
A new report by the Wall Street Journal casts doubt on that comforting notion. According to the Journal, the NSA “has the capacity to reach roughly 75% of all U.S. Internet traffic.” And while the NSA is only supposed to “target” foreigners, the NSA sometimes “retains the written content of e-mails sent between citizens within the U.S.”
The Journal says the NSA relies on extensive collaboration with domestic telecommunications companies to get access to Internet traffic. “The programs, code-named Blarney, Fairview, Oakstar, Lithium and Stormbrew, among others, filter and gather information at major telecommunications companies.” Filtering occurs at more than a dozen “major Internet junctions.”
These programs have a long history. The NSA was already intercepting international Internet traffic before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. After those terrorist attacks, the government expanded its surveillance activities to include more collection points inside the United States. One of those collection points became the target of an Electronic Frontier Foundation lawsuit after an AT&T whistleblower revealed the existence of a secret, NSA-controlled room inside an AT&T facility in San Francisco.
Like the other NSA programs revealed in recent weeks, this one involves minimal judicial oversight. Surveillance must be “covered by a broad court order” under the FISA Amendments Act. But that 2008 law doesn’t require judicial scrutiny of individual surveillance targets. Instead, judges bless broad surveillance programs, leaving decisions about specific surveillance targets up to the NSA itself.
And sometimes surveillance activities can be quite extensive. For example, the NSA engaged in dragnet surveillance during the 2002 Winter Olympics. “The Federal Bureau of Investigation and NSA arranged with Qwest Communications International Inc. to use intercept equipment for a period of less than six months around the time of the event,” the Journal reports. “It monitored the content of all email and text communications in the Salt Lake City area.”
Court limits appeal rights for ‘sensitive’ federal jobs
SourceCourt limits appeal rights for ‘sensitive’ federal jobs
By Josh Hicks, Published: August 21 at 6:00 am
A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled that the Merit Systems Protection Board has no standing to review the Defense Department’s security determinations, drawing criticism from labor groups and whistleblower-protection advocates concerned about due process for the agency’s employees.
In a 7-3 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the government’s authority to designate certain jobs as “noncritical sensitive,” even when the positions do not allow access to classified information.
Critics have raised concerns that the ruling could allow supervisors to punish employees with impunity by classifying their positions as “noncritical sensitive” and then declaring the workers unfit for their jobs.
“The court created a ‘sensitive jobs loophole’ without citing any direct legal authority and openly backed a proposed administration rule to declare virtually any job as national-security sensitive,” the Government Accountability Project said in a statement.
The Office of Personnel Management brought the case to the appeals court, challenging the MSPB’s claim that it could review personnel actions against two low-level Defense Department workers because their jobs did not require access to classified information.
The employees in the case were accounting technician Rhonda Conyers, who was suspended indefinitely, and commissary worker Devon Northover, who was demoted.
The majority in Tuesday’s decision wrote that the review board focused too narrowly on access to classified information while ignoring “the impact employees without security clearances, but in sensitive positions, can have.” The judges said a commissary worker could tip off the enemy to a deployment after noticing a surge in inventory.
The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents the two employees, said in a statement Tuesday that it will review the court’s decision and that it expects to seek a Supreme Court review.
AFGE president J. David Cox said the court “dismissed our appeal and with it the due process rights of tens of thousands of current and future federal workers.”
“Due process rights are the very foundation of our civil service system,” Cox added. “That system itself has been undermined by the court today, if this ruling is allowed to stand.”
To connect with Josh Hicks, follow his Twitter feed or email josh.hicks@washpost.com. For more federal news, visit The Federal Eye, The Fed Page and Post Politics. E-mail federalworker@washpost.com with news tips and other suggestions.
Costa Mesa councilmen accuse police union of intimidation in suit
It's not about "protecting and serving", it's about high paying police jobs and police porkCosta Mesa councilmen accuse police union of intimidation in suit
By Jeremiah Dobruck
August 21, 2013, 9:00 a.m.
Costa Mesa Mayor Jim Righeimer and Mayor Pro Tem Steve Mensinger have sued the city's police officers union, alleging the group and two other defendants intimidated and harassed them for political gain.
Much of the lawsuit stems from an Aug. 22, 2012, incident in which private investigator Chris Lanzillo followed Righeimer as he left a local bar and restaurant owned by Councilman Gary Monahan, the Daily Pilot reported.
According to a 911 recording obtained by the Daily Pilot, Lanzillo called to report a potential drunk driver, whom he did not identify as Righeimer, driving erratically and reaching a speed of 50 mph down a residential street.
Police administered a sobriety test in front of Righeimer's Mesa Verde home while his children watched in fear, the lawsuit alleges.
Righeimer was found not to be impaired and soon after the incident held a news conference where he produced a receipt for two Diet Cokes from Skosh Monahan's.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday, names the Costa Mesa Police Officers' Assn.; Upland-based law firm Lackie, Dammeier, McGill & Ethir; and Menifee private investigator Lanzillo, alleging they intentionally inflicted emotional distress and violated civil rights, among 15 other complaints.
Righeimer's wife, Lene, is also included as a plaintiff.
"They're coercing and intimidating these people so that they change their vote in favor of the police association," said attorney Vince Finaldi, who filed the suit on behalf of Mensinger and the Righeimers.
At the time of the incident, Righeimer accused political enemies of trying to set him up. He asserted that the association employed Lanzillo to tail him -- an allegation the association strongly denied at the time.
Representatives from the association could not be reached for comment Tuesda.
Righeimer and the council majority have been working to reduce public employee compensation, a move that has drawn fierce resistance from public employee associations, collective-bargaining units that share some characteristics with but are not technically unions.
The suit alleges that the police association, Lanzillo and the law firm were all involved in the situation at least indirectly.
"What we're saying is it's a conspiracy, that they were all conspiring together to do this," said Finaldi, of the Irvine-based law firm Manly, Stewart & Finaldi.
The plaintiffs have asked for a jury trial, during which any damages would be decided, Finaldi said.
Lanzillo and the law firm also could not be reached after work hours Tuesday evening.
La CIA confirma existencia de base secreta "Área 51" en Nevada
SourceLa CIA confirma existencia de base secreta "Área 51" en Nevada
Hasta ahora el lugar no ha aparecido en los mapas o en las imágenes de satélite oficiales.
La Agencia Central de Inteligencia de Estados Unidos (CIA, por sus siglas en inglés) confirmó esta semana, por primera vez, la existencia de una base militar secreta conocida como "Área 51", que está ubicada en el desierto de Nevada.
Hasta ahora el lugar no ha aparecido en los mapas o en las imágenes de satélite oficiales.
Las revelaciones fueron divulgadas por nuevos documentos desclasificados que detallan cómo el área fue utilizada durante la Guerra Fría, en 1955, para realizar pruebas secretas de los aviones espía U-2.
Los documentos obtenidos por la Universidad George Washington afirman que el sitio fue creado por una orden del presidente Dwight Eisenhower, a mediados de la década de los 50.
Aunque su existencia no era un secreto, el hecho de que el gobierno no reconociera su existencia dio lugar a diversar teorías de conspiración.
Corresponsales aseguran que es muy poco probable que la revelación acabe con esta sospechas conspirativas, que sostienen que en el "Área 51" también está ubicado un centro de investigación de extraterrestres y objetos voladores no identificados (ovnis) perteneciente al gobierno de EU.
NSA collected thousands of U.S. communications
Maybe I should send a request for public records to Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema and ask for a copy of all my emails that her goons in the NSA have read???NSA collected thousands of U.S. communications
Associated Press Wed Aug 21, 2013 12:57 PM
WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency declassified three secret U.S. court opinions Wednesday showing how it scooped up as many as 56,000 emails and other communications by Americans with no connection to terrorism annually over three years, how it revealed the error to the court and changed how it gathered Internet communications.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper authorized the release Wednesday.
The opinions show that when the NSA reported that to the court in 2011, the court ordered the NSA to find ways to limit what it collects and how long it keeps it.
The NSA reported the problems it discovered in how it was gathering Internet communications to the court and shortly thereafter to Congress in the fall of 2011.
Three senior U.S. intelligence officials said Wednesday that the NSA realized that when it was gathering up bundled Internet communications from fiber optic cables, with the cooperation of telecommunications providers like AT&T, that it was often collecting thousands of emails or other Internet transactions by Americans who had no connection to the intended terror target being tracked.
The officials briefed reporters on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to describe the program publicly.
While the NSA is allowed to keep the metadata — the address or phone number and the duration, but not the content, of the communication — of Americans for up to five years, the court ruled that when it gathered up such large packets of information, they included actual emails between American citizens, it violated the U.S. Constitution’s ban against unauthorized search and seizure.
In the opinion by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court denouncing the practice, the judge wrote that the NSA had advised the court that “the volume and nature of the information it had been collecting is fundamentally different than what the court had been led to believe,” and went on to say the court must consider “whether targeting and minimization procedures comport with the 4th Amendment.”
For instance, two senior intelligence officials said, when an American logged into an email server and looked at the emails in his or her inbox, that screen shot of the emails could be collected, together with Internet transactions by a terrorist suspect being targeted by the NSA — because that suspect’s communications were being sent on the same fiber optic cable by the same Internet provider, in a bundled packet of data.
These interceptions of innocent Americans’ communications were happening when the NSA accessed Internet information “upstream,” meaning off of fiber optic cables or other channels where Internet traffic traverses the U.S. telecommunications system.
The NSA disclosed that it gathers some 250 million internet communications each year, with some 9 percent from these “upstream” channels, amounting to between 20 million to 25 million emails a year. The agency used statistical analysis to estimate that of those, possibly as many as 56,000 Internet communications collected were sent by Americans or persons in the U.S. with no connection to terrorism.
Under court order, the NSA resolved the problem by creating new ways to detect when emails by people within the U.S. were being intercepted, and separated those batches of communications. It also developed new ways to limit how that data could be accessed or used. The agency also agreed to only keep these bundled communications for possible later analysis for a 2-year period, instead of the usual 5-year retention period.
The agency also, under court order, destroyed all the bundled data gathered between 2008, when the FISA Court first authorized the collection under section 702 of the Patriot Act, until 2011 when the new procedures were put in place.
The newly released court opinions revealed the court signed off on the new procedures, deeming them constitutionally acceptable.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the White House still contends there is no domestic surveillance program despite new revelations about the scope of U.S. emails and Internet communications that can get swept up by the NSA. He said the program is specifically to gather foreign intelligence, adding that the fact that the extent of incidental American surveillance has been documented is proof positive that accountability measures are working properly.
“The reason that we’re talking about it right now is because there are very strict compliance standards in place at the NSA that monitor for compliance issues, that tabulate them, that document them and that put in place measures to correct them when they occur,” Earnest said.
The Emperor Wears No Clothes
I didn't know this but the book:The Emperor Wears No Clothesis on the web and you can read it for free right here. The book is by Jack Herer who recently died.
If you want a thousand good reasons to legalize, or re-legalize marijuana the book The Emperor Wears No Clothes has those reasons for you.
Proper channels for whistle blowers - Keep your mouth shut!!!!
Emperor Obama says that whistle blowers like Edward Snowden should use proper channels to report government misconduct and crimes. I think Emperor Obama is using government double speak to tell us that whistle blowers like Edward Snowden should keep their f*cking mouths shut.The price Gina Gray paid for whistleblowing
By Dana Milbank, Published: August 20
President Obama, in his news conference this month, said that Edward Snowden was wrong to go public with revelations about secret surveillance programs because “there were other avenues available for somebody whose conscience was stirred and thought that they needed to question government actions.”
This is a common refrain among administration officials and some lawmakers: If only Snowden had made his concerns known through the proper internal channels, everything would have turned out well. The notion sounds reasonable, as do the memorandums Obama signed supposedly protecting whistleblowers.
But it’s a load of nonsense. Ask Gina Gray.
Gray is the Defense Department whistleblower whose case I have been following for five years. She was the Army civilian worker who, before and after her employment, exposed much of the wrongdoing at Arlington National Cemetery — misplaced graves, mishandled remains and financial mismanagement — and she attempted to do it through the proper internal channels. Pentagon sources have confirmed to me her crucial role in bringing the scandal to light.
For her troubles, Gray was fired. The Pentagon’s inspector general recommended corrective action to compensate Gray.
According to documents just obtained by Gray’s lawyer, Mark Zaid, Army Secretary John McHugh rejected the inspector general’s suggestion. McHugh wouldn’t offer Gray anything because she was on “probationary status at the time of her termination.”
Gray, who worked in Iraq as an Army contractor and Army public affairs specialist, is now unemployed and living in North Carolina.
“I went all the way up the channels,” Gray told me on Tuesday. “This is what happens when you do that.”
In response to my inquiries to the Pentagon, an Army spokesman, Col. David H. Patterson Jr., issued a statement saying that Gray’s status as a whistleblower was limited and that her firing was unrelated. “We consider the matter closed,” he said, calling the Army’s position “validated” by a federal court’s “dismissal of Ms. Gray’s lawsuit — with prejudice.”
The lawsuit was dismissed this week — because Gray dropped it. She could no longer afford the legal fees.
Sadly, Gray’s case is emblematic of the way this administration has handled whistleblowers. Obama came into office pledging transparency and professing admiration for government workers who expose abuses. But his administration has pursued more cases under the 1917 Espionage Act than all previous administrations combined (including the prosecution of National Security Agency workers who tried to register their objections through “proper” channels). And the alleged intimidation of would-be whistleblowers goes beyond those involved in sensitive intelligence. For example, diplomat Gregory Hicks told a House committee that he was demoted because he gave congressional investigators a description of the attack on Americans in Benghazi, Libya, that was at odds with the official version of events.
Gray’s ordeal began in April 2008 after I covered the Arlington funeral of an officer killed in the Iraq war. While there, I observed a dispute between Gray and deputy superintendent Thurman Higginbotham, the man later at the center of the Arlington scandals. Higginbotham was trying to prevent reporters from observing the burial, in violation of the family’s wishes and Arlington’s regulations — and Gray, though new on the job, told him he was wrong.
Gray registered her objections internally — but loudly. She refused to sign off on a report to the Army secretary’s office that was a whitewash of the way burials were handled at Arlington because, she said, her higher-ups were violating Defense Department regulations. She began to learn of other misdeeds by Arlington management and attempted to let military officials know; in June 2008, according to one of Gray’s legal filings, she told the commanding general of the Military District of Washington about “major problems” at the cemetery, involving fraud, mismanagement and broken regulations.
Two days later, she was fired.
A 2010 report by the Pentagon’s inspector general designated Gray as a whistleblower and concluded that, contrary to regulations, Arlington management “elected to terminate her, rather than make a reasonable effort to address public affairs policy issues that she raised” or to “document performance deficiencies that ANC management later claimed formed the basis for Ms. Gray’s termination.”
After her firing, Gray passed along information about mismanagement at Arlington to three congressional offices, all of which received false assurances from the Army that everything was under control. Gray eventually provided her findings to reporters and to the inspector general, leading to the ouster of the Arlington management.
Snowden’s case is quite a bit different, and murkier; his dalliances with China and now Russia raise questions about his motives. But Gray’s case shows that Snowden was correct about one thing: Trying to pursue the proper internal channels doesn’t work.
If the Obama administration wants whistleblowers to take the “proper” route, it needs to protect them when they do.
Army Maj. Nidal Hasan guilty of murder for Fort Hood shootings
Army Maj. Nidal Hasan guilty of murder for Fort Hood shootingsThe British called George Washington a terrorist, Americans called him a "Freedom Fighter".
While the American government calls Army Maj. Nidal Hasan a terrorist, I am sure many anti-war Americans, along with many Arabs call Army Maj. Nidal Hasan a "freedom fighter".
While Army Maj. Nidal Hasan certainly is guilty of murdering 13 American soldiers, you have to remember that both George W. Bush and Barack Obama are guilty of murdering thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Also both George W. Bush and Barack Obama are guilty of using drones to intentionally murder hundreds of suspected Arab military leaders along with many innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Soldier guilty of murder for Fort Hood shootings
Associated Press Fri Aug 23, 2013 12:02 PM
FORT HOOD, Texas — Army Maj. Nidal Hasan was convicted Friday in the 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, a shocking assault against American troops at home by one of their own who said he opened fire on fellow soldiers to protect Muslim insurgents abroad.
The Army psychiatrist acknowledged carrying out the attack in a crowded waiting room where unarmed troops were making final preparations to deploy to Afghanistan and Iraq. Thirteen people were killed and more than 30 wounded.
Because Hasan never denied his actions, the court-martial was always less about a conviction than it was about ensuring he received the death penalty. From the beginning of the case, the federal government has sought to execute Hasan, believing that any sentence short of a lethal injection would deprive the military and the families of the dead of the justice they have sought for nearly four years.
A jury of 13 high-ranking military officers reached a unanimous guilty verdict on all charges — 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder — in about seven hours. Hasan had no visible reaction as the verdict was read. After the jury and Hasan left the courtroom, some victims who survived the shooting and family members began to cry.
In the next phase of the trial that will begin Monday, they must all agree to give Hasan the death penalty before he can be sent to the military’s death row, which has just five other prisoners. If they do not agree, the 42-year-old could spend the rest of his life in prison.
Hasan, a Virginia-born Muslim, said the attack was a jihad against U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He bristled when the trial judge, Col. Tara Osborn, suggested the shooting rampage could have been avoided were it not for a spontaneous flash of anger.
“It wasn’t done under the heat of sudden passion,” Hasan said before jurors began deliberating. “There was adequate provocation — that these were deploying soldiers that were going to engage in an illegal war.”
All but one of the dead were soldiers, including a pregnant private who curled on the floor and pleaded for her baby’s life.
The sentencing phase is expected to include more testimony from survivors of the attack inside an Army medical center where soldiers were waiting in long lines to receive immunizations and medical clearance for deployment.
About 50 soldiers and civilians testified of hearing someone scream “Allahu akbar!” — Arabic for “God is great!” — and seeing a man in Army camouflage open fire. Many identified Hasan as the shooter and recalled his handgun’s red and green laser sights piercing a room made dark with gun smoke.
Hasan, who acted as his own attorney, began the trial by telling jurors he was the gunman. But he said little else over the next three weeks, which convinced his court-appointed standby lawyers that Hasan’s only goal was to get a death sentence.
As the trial progressed, those suspicions grew. The military called nearly 90 witnesses, but Hasan rested his case without calling a single person to testify in his defense and made no closing argument. Yet he leaked documents during the trial to journalists that revealed him telling military mental health workers that he could “still be a martyr” if executed.
Death sentences are rare in the military and trigger automatic appeals that take decades play out. Among the final barriers to execution is authorization from the president. No American soldier has been executed since 1961.
Hasan spent weeks planning the Nov. 5, 2009, attack. His preparation included buying the handgun and videotaping a sales clerk showing him how to change the magazine.
He later plunked down $10 at a gun range outside Austin and asked for pointers on how to reload with speed and precision. An instructor said he told Hasan to practice while watching TV or sitting on his couch with the lights off.
When the time came, Hasan stuffed paper towels in the pockets of his cargo pants to muffle the rattling of extra ammo and avoid arousing suspicion. Soldiers testified that Hasan’s rapid reloading made it all but impossible to stop the shooting. Investigators recovered 146 shell casings inside the medical building and dozens more outside, where Hasan shot at the backs of soldiers fleeing toward the parking lot.
The first person to charge Hasan, a civilian doctor, was shot dead while wielding a chair. Another soldier who ran at him with a table was stopped upon being shot in the hand.
Chief Warrant Officer Christopher Royal saw an opening after hearing the distinct clicking of the gun’s chamber emptying. But he slipped on a puddle of blood while starting a sprint toward Hasan. He was shot in the back.
Tight security blanketed the trial. The courthouse was made into a fortress insulated by a 20-foot cushion of blast-absorbing blockades, plus an outer perimeter of shipping containers stacked three high. A helicopter ferried Hasan back and forth each day. The small courtroom was guarded by soldiers carrying high-powered rifles.
In court, Hasan never played the role of an angry extremist. He didn’t get agitated or raise his voice. He addressed Osborn as “ma’am” and occasionally whispered “thank you” when prosecutors, in accordance with the rules of admitting evidence, handed Hasan red pill bottles that rattled with bullet fragments removed from those who were shot.
His muted presence was a contrast to the spectacles staged by other unapologetic jihadists in U.S. courts. Terrorist conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui disrupted his 2006 sentencing for the Sept. 11 attacks multiple times with outbursts, was ejected several times and once proclaimed, “I am al-Qaida!”
Prosecutors never charged Hasan as a terrorist — an omission that still galls family members of the slain and survivors, some of whom have sued the U.S. government over missing the warning signs of Hasan’s views before the attack.
In Paper War, Flood of Liens Is the Weapon
There really isn't anything new about this. I have posted articles about this before.In Paper War, Flood of Liens Is the Weapon
Ben Garvin for The New York Times
Published: August 23, 2013 231 Comments
MINNEAPOLIS — One of the first inklings Sheriff Richard Stanek had that something was wrong came with a call from the mortgage company handling his refinancing.
“It must be a mistake,” he said, when the loan officer told him that someone had placed liens totaling more than $25 million on his house and on other properties he owned.
But as Sheriff Stanek soon learned, the liens, legal claims on property to secure the payment of a debt, were just the earliest salvos in a war of paper, waged by a couple who had lost their home to foreclosure in 2009 — a tactic that, with the spread of an anti-government ideology known as the “sovereign citizen” movement, is being employed more frequently as a way to retaliate against perceived injustices.
Over the next three years, the couple, Thomas and Lisa Eilertson, filed more than $250 billion in liens, demands for compensatory damages and other claims against more than a dozen people, including the sheriff, county attorneys, the Hennepin County registrar of titles and other court officials.
“It affects your credit rating, it affected my wife, it affected my children,” Sheriff Stanek said of the liens. “We spent countless hours trying to undo it.”
Cases involving sovereign citizens are surfacing increasingly here in Minnesota and in other states, posing a challenge to law enforcement officers and court officials, who often become aware of the movement — a loose network of groups and individuals who do not recognize the authority of federal, state or municipal government — only when they become targets. Although the filing of liens for outrageous sums or other seemingly frivolous claims might appear laughable, dealing with them can be nightmarish, so much so that the F.B.I. has labeled the strategy “paper terrorism.” A lien can be filed by anyone under the Uniform Commercial Code.
Occasionally, people who identify with the movement have erupted into violence. In Las Vegas this week, the police said that an undercover sting operation stopped a plot to torture and kill police officers in order to bring attention to the movement. Two people were arrested. In 2010, two police officers in Arkansas were killed while conducting a traffic stop with a father and son involved in the movement.
Mostly, though, sovereign citizens choose paper as their weapon. In Gadsden, Ala., three people were arrested in July for filing liens against victims including the local district attorney and Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew. And in Illinois this month, a woman who, like most sovereign citizens, chose to represent herself in court, confounded a federal judge by asking him to rule on a flurry of unintelligible motions.
“I hesitate to rank your statements in order of just how bizarre they are,” the judge told the woman, who was facing charges of filing billions of dollars in false liens.
“The convergence of the evidence strongly suggests a movement that is flourishing,” said Mark Pitcavage, the director of investigative research for the Anti-Defamation League. “It is present in every single state in the country.”
The sovereign citizen movement traces its roots to white extremist groups like the Posse Comitatus of the 1970s, and the militia movement. Terry L. Nichols, the Oklahoma City bombing conspirator, counted himself a sovereign citizen. But in recent years it has drawn from a much wider demographic, including blacks, members of Moorish sects and young Occupy protesters, said Detective Moe Greenberg of the Baltimore County Police Department, who has written about the movement.
The ideology seems to attract con artists, the financially desperate and people who are fed up with bureaucracy, Mr. Pitcavage said, adding, “But we’ve seen airline pilots, we’ve seen federal law enforcement officers, we’ve seen city councilmen and millionaires get involved with this movement.”
Sovereign citizens believe that in the 1800s, the federal government was gradually subverted and replaced by an illegitimate government. They create their own driver’s licenses and include their thumbprints on documents to distinguish their flesh and blood person from a “straw man” persona that they say has been created by the false government. When writing their names, they often add punctuation marks like colons or hyphens.
Adherents to the movement have been involved in a host of debt evasion schemes and mortgage and tax frauds. Two were convicted in Cleveland recently for collecting $8 million in fraudulent tax refunds from the I.R.S. And in March, Tim Turner, the leader of one large group, the Republic for the united States of America, was sentenced in Alabama to 18 years in federal prison. (His group does not capitalize the first letter in united.)
Sovereign citizens who file creditor claims are helped by the fact that in most states, the secretary of state must accept any lien that is filed without judging its validity.
The National Association of Secretaries of State released a report in April on sovereign citizens, urging state officials to find ways to expedite the removal of liens and increase penalties for fraudulent filings. More than a dozen states have enacted laws giving state filing offices more discretion in accepting liens, and an increasing number of states have passed or are considering legislation to toughen the penalties for bogus filings.
The Eilertsons, who were charged with 47 counts of fraudulent filing and sentenced in June to 23 months in prison, were prosecuted under a Minnesota law that makes it a felony to file fraudulent documents to retaliate against officials. John Ristad, an assistant Ramsey County attorney who handled the case, said he believed the Eilertsons were the first offenders to be prosecuted under the law. “It got me angry,” he said, “because at the end of the day, these two are bullies who think they can get their way by filing paper.”
The liens were filed against houses, vehicles and even mineral rights. In an affidavit, the Hennepin County examiner of titles said that in a conversation with the Eilertsons about their foreclosure, one of them told her, “We’re gonna have to lien ya.” The examiner later found that a lien for more than $5.1 million had been placed on her property.
If the purpose was to instill trepidation, it worked. Several county and state officials said in interviews that they worried that they might once again find themselves in the crosshairs. One state employee said it was scarier to engage with offenders who used sovereign citizen tactics than with murderers, given the prospect of facing lawsuits or fouled credit ratings.
Like many who identify with the ideology, the Eilertsons learned the techniques of document filing online from one of many sovereign citizen “gurus” who offer instruction or seminars around the country.
In hours of recorded conversation found by the authorities on their computer, the Eilertsons consulted with a man identified on the recordings as Paul Kappel, learning what he called “death by a thousand paper cuts.”
Mr. Eilertson, interviewed at the state prison in Bayport, Minn., denied being anti-government or belonging to any movement. But he was familiar with the names of some figures associated with sovereign citizen teachings, including an activist named David Wynn Miller, who Mr. Eilertson said was “ahead of his time.” (Mr. Miller writes his name as David-Wynn: Miller.)
Mr. Eilertson, who had no previous criminal record, said his actions were an effort to fight back against corrupt banks that had handed off the couple’s mortgage time after time and whose top executives never faced consequences for their actions.
“It seemed like we were being attacked every day,” he said. “We needed some way to stop the foreclosure.
“We tried to do our part with as much information as we had available,” he said, though he conceded that “it kind of got out of control eventually.”
NSA Surveillance - Lady Liberty Raped
NSA Surveillance - TSA goons destroying America
NSA decrypted United Nations’ communications
NSA reportedly decrypted U.N. communicationsGerman magazine: NSA decrypted, spied on, United Nations’ internal video conferencing system
By Associated Press, Sunday, August 25, 6:32 AM
BERLIN — The German magazine Der Spiegel says the U.S. National Security Agency secretly monitored the U.N.’s internal video conferencing system by decrypting it last year.
The weekly said Sunday that documents it obtained from American leaker Edward Snowden show the NSA decoded the system at the U.N.’s headquarters in New York last summer.
Quoting leaked NSA documents, the article said the decryption “dramatically increased the data from video phone conferences and the ability to decode the data traffic.”
In three weeks, Der Spiegel said, the NSA increased the number of decrypted communications at the U.N. from 12 to 458.
Snowden’s leaks have exposed details of the United States’ global surveillance apparatus, sparking an international debate over the limits of American spying.
I guess Obama lied about us winning the war in Iraq!!!
Officials: Numerous insurgent attacks in Iraq kill 46 people
SourceOfficials: Numerous insurgent attacks in Iraq kill 46 people
Associated Press Sun Aug 25, 2013 11:51 PM
BAGHDAD - Insurgents bent on destabilizing Iraq killed at least 46 people in numerous attacks scattered around the country on Sunday, striking targets as varied as a coffee shop, a wedding party convoy and a carload of off-duty soldiers.
The boldest attack was near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, where militants set up a fake security checkpoint, captured five soldiers and shot them dead, a police officer said. The soldiers were dressed in civilian clothes and returning to base in a taxi.
Inside Mosul, other gunmen in a speeding car shot and killed a grocer, the officer said.
Mosul, a former insurgent stronghold, is about 220 miles northwest of Baghdad.
Another police officer said a car bomb exploded as a judge drove past in the northern town of Balad, killing three nurses and a man who had been walking nearby. Thirteen other people were wounded, including the judge, his brother and a driver, he added.
Attacks have been on the rise in Iraq since a deadly security crackdown in April on a Sunni protest camp. More than 3,000 people have been killed in violence during the past few months, raising fears the country could see an even deadlier, sectarian round of bloodshed similar to what brought the country to the edge of civil war in 2006 and 2007.
Many of Sunday’s victims were civilians going about their normal business despite the rising risks.
For instance, in the town of Madain, about 15 miles southeast of Baghdad, a car bomb explosion killed four and wounded 12, another police officer said. Authorities reported that another bomb there struck a group of young people playing soccer, killing four and wounding 13.
Medical officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release the information.
What's your share of the $16.7 trillion debt???
What's your share of the $16.7 trillion debt???The current population of the USA is about 313 million and with a National Debt of $16.7 trillion that means every man, woman and child in the USA owes $53,354 towards their share of the National Debt.
But since most children don't pay taxes lets calculate what ever adult in the USA owes toward the National Debt. I will just double the number because about half the US population is children so each adult in the USA owes $106,709 toward their share of the National Debt.
That means that mythical family of four owes $213,418 toward their share of the National Debt. If they recently bought a home, that is probably about what they owe toward their mortgage.
Of course if you have read the book "The Creature from Jekyll Island" by G. Edward Griffin you probably realize that the National Debt is just an accounting sham where the government pretends to borrow money from itself to justify running the printing presses to print all that money.
U.S. will hit debt limit in mid-October, Treasury secretary Lew says
By Jim Puzzanghera
August 26, 2013, 1:59 p.m.
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. will run out of borrowing authority under the nation's $16.7-trillion debt limit in mid-October, Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew formally told Congress on Monday as he implored lawmakers to act soon to avoid a government default.
Lew had last updated Congress on the debt limit in May, saying that he expected the Treasury to be able to continue borrowing until at least Labor Day.
The new deadline comes as lawmakers prepare to return to Washington next month to battle over government spending. Republican leaders have demanded budget cuts in exchange for raising the debt limit, and some lawmakers want President Obama and Democrats to agree to other policy concession as well.
Raising the limit doesn't authorize new spending; it simply allows the government to pay the bills for spending Congress already has approved.
But Lew warned that a standoff risked "dire consequences" and urged Congress to act quickly to "remove the threat of default."
"Protecting the full faith and credit of the United States is the responsibility of Congress because only Congress can extend the nation's borrowing authority," Lew wrote to House and Senate leaders, with copies sent to all lawmakers.
"Failure to meet that responsibility would cause irreparable harm to the American economy," he said.
A bitter showdown over raising the debt limit two years ago led Standard & Poor's to cut the nation's AAA credit rating to AA+.
The government technically hit its debt limit again in May. Since then, the Treasury has been using so-called extraordinary measures to juggle the nation's finances and continue borrowing to pay its bills.
The Treasury got additional help this summer when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made a combined dividend payment of nearly $60 billion on their bailouts, extending the deadline for the U.S. to raise its borrowing authority.
Based on the latest estimates, the Treasury's extraordinary measures would reach their limit in the middle of October, Lew said.
At that point, the government would only be able to pay bills with cash on hand of about $50 billion on any given day. Because it's not possible to estimate precisely when that cash would run out, Lew said Congress shouldn't wait until the last minute.
"Congress should act as soon as possible to protect America's good credit by extending normal borrowing authority well before any risk of default becomes imminent," he wrote.
As Randolph Bourne said
Of course the rest of us will be taxed to pay for war profits which are giving all the folks in the military industrial complex smiles on their faces.
Well at least in America we won't have to worry about burying the dead people murdered by the American Empire. While us Americans pay the price of our masters wars thru our wallets, in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan they pay the price of our masters wars with dead bodies.
Hagel: U.S. military stands ready to strike Syria
Associated Press Tue Aug 27, 2013 7:03 AM
WASHINGTON — The U.S. military stands ready to strike Syria at once if President Barack Obama gives the order, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Tuesday as the United States prepared to formally declare that chemical weapons had been used in Syria’s civil war.
U.S. officials said the growing intelligence pointed strongly toward Bashar Assad’s government as the culprit in the chemical attack in the Damascus suburbs last week that activists say killed hundreds of people — a claim Assad called “preposterous.”
The U.S., along with allies in Europe, appeared to be laying the groundwork for the most aggressive response since the civil war began more than two years ago.
Two administration officials said the U.S. was expected to make public a more formal determination of chemical weapons use on Tuesday, with an announcement of Obama’s response likely to follow quickly. The officials insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the internal deliberations.
Secretary of State John Kerry has called the evidence of a large-scale chemical weapons attack “undeniable.” He said international standards against chemical weapons “cannot be violated without consequences.”
Any U.S. military action in Syria most likely would involve sea-launched cruise missile attacks on military targets. Officials said it was likely the targets would be tied to the regime’s ability to launch chemical weapons attacks. Possible targets would include weapons arsenals, command and control centers, radar and communications facilities and other military headquarters.
Less likely was a strike on a chemical weapons site because of the risk of releasing toxic gases.
Hagel told BBC television Tuesday that the Defense Department has “moved assets in place to be able to fulfill and comply with whatever option the president wishes to take.” The Navy has four destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean Sea within range of targets inside Syria. The U.S. also has warplanes in the region.
“We are ready to go,” said Hagel, speaking during a visit to the Southeast Asian nation of Brunei.
Hagel said “to me it’s clearer and clearer” that the Syrian government was responsible, but that the Obama administration was waiting for intelligence agencies to make the determination.
In London, Prime Minister David Cameron recalled Parliament for an urgent discussion Thursday on a possible military response. The British government said its military was drawing up contingency plans for a possible military attack. Italy, meanwhile, insisted that any strike must be authorized by the U.N. Security Council.
Assad has denied launching a chemical attack. In an interview published Tuesday on the website of the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency, Assad warned that if the U.S. attacks Syria, it will face “what it has been confronted with in every war since Vietnam: failure.”
Syrian activists say the Aug. 21 chemical attack killed hundreds. The group Doctors Without Borders put the death toll at 355 people.
The international community appeared to be considering action that would punish Assad for deploying deadly gases, not sweeping measures aimed at ousting the Syrian leader or strengthening rebel forces.
“This is about the violation of an international norm against the use of chemical weapons and how we should respond to that,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said.
A United Nations team already on the ground in Syria has collected evidence from last week’s attack. The team came under sniper fire Monday as it traveled to the site of the Aug. 21 attack and on Tuesday delayed a second inspection.
The U.S. said Syria’s delay in giving the inspectors access rendered their investigation meaningless, and officials said the administration had its own intelligence confirming chemical weapons use and planned to make it public in the coming days.
It’s unlikely that the U.S. would launch a strike against Syria while the United Nations team is still in the country. A U.N. spokeswoman said the inspection team might need longer than the planned 14 days to complete its work.
Officials said there was “very little doubt” that the chemical attack originated with the Assad regime, noting that Syria’s rebel forces do not appear to have access to the country’s chemical weapons stockpile.
It’s unclear whether Obama would seek authority from the U.N. or Congress before using force. It is likely Russia and China would block U.S. efforts to authorize action through the U.N. Security Council.
More than 100,000 people have died in clashes between forces loyal to Assad and rebels trying to oust him from power. While Obama has repeatedly called for Assad to leave power, he has resisted calls for a robust U.S. intervention and has largely limited American assistance to humanitarian aid.
Obama has ruled out putting U.S. troops on the ground in Syria, and officials say they are not considering setting up a unilateral no-fly zone.
After Syria chemical allegations, Obama considering limited military strike
By Karen DeYoung and Anne Gearan, Published: August 26
President Obama is weighing a military strike against Syria that would be of limited scope and duration, designed to serve as punishment for Syria’s use of chemical weapons and as a deterrent, while keeping the United States out of deeper involvement in that country’s civil war, according to senior administration officials.
The timing of such an attack, which would probably last no more than two days and involve sea-launched cruise missiles — or, possibly, long-range bombers — striking military targets not directly related to Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal, would be dependent on three factors: completion of an intelligence report assessing Syrian government culpability in last week’s alleged chemical attack; ongoing consultation with allies and Congress; and determination of a justification under international law.
The Obama administration toughened its criticism of Syria's alleged chemical weapons use, with Secretary of State John Kerry cutting his vacation short to address the crisis as the U.S. considers possible military actions.
The Obama administration toughened its criticism of Syria's alleged chemical weapons use, with Secretary of State John Kerry cutting his vacation short to address the crisis as the U.S. considers possible military actions.
“We’re actively looking at the various legal angles that would inform a decision,” [legal angles??? As one bank robber to the other said, let's rob this bank because they don't have any armed guards like the other bank. Emperor Obama doesn't mind invading a small country like Syria that can't defend themselves, but he certainly won't bomb a country with nuclear weapons that can defend it's self like North Korea.] said an official who spoke about the presidential deliberations on the condition of anonymity. Missile-armed U.S. warships are already positioned in the Mediterranean.
As the administration moved rapidly toward a decision, Secretary of State John F. Kerry said the use of chemical weapons in an attack Wednesday against opposition strongholds on the outskirts of Damascus is now “undeniable.”
Evidence being gathered by United Nations experts in Syria was important, Kerry said, but not necessary to prove what is already “grounded in facts, informed by conscience and guided by common sense.”
The team of U.N. weapons investigators on Monday visited one of three rebel-held suburbs where the alleged attack took place, after first being forced to withdraw when their vehicles came under sniper fire. The Syrian government, which along with Russia has suggested that the rebels were responsible for the chemical attack, agreed to the U.N. inspection over the weekend.
Videos and statements by witnesses and relief organizations such as Doctors Without Borders have proved that an attack occurred, Kerry said. The U.S. intelligence report is to be released this week.
Among the factors, officials said, are that only the government is known to possess chemical weapons and the rockets to deliver them, and its continuing control of chemical stocks has been closely monitored by U.S. intelligence.
Kerry said Syrian forces had engaged in a “cynical attempt to cover up” their actions, not only by delaying the arrival of the U.N. team but by shelling the affected area continually. Any U.S. strike would probably await the departure of the U.N. inspectors from Syria.
Kerry’s statement, which he read to reporters in the State Department briefing room without taking questions, was part of an escalating administration drumbeat, which is likely to include a public statement by Obama in coming days. Officials said the public warnings are designed partly to wring any possible cooperation out of Russia — or an unlikely admission from the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — before Obama makes his decision.
The administration decided to postpone a meeting with the Russians this week in The Hague to discuss a negotiated solution to the Syrian war, “given our ongoing consultations about the appropriate response to the chemical weapons attack in Syria on August 21,” a State Department official said.
At the State Department, Kerry said, “Make no mistake: President Obama believes there must be accountability for those who would use the world’s most heinous weapons against the world’s most vulnerable people. Nothing today is more serious, and nothing is receiving more serious scrutiny.”
He and other officials drew a sharp distinction between U.S. action related to a violation of international law by what they called Assad’s “massive” use of chemical weapons and any direct military involvement in the Syrian conflict, which is in its third year. [Of course lets forget about America's invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan which both were almost certainly violations of international law.]
“What we are talking about here is a potential response . . . to this specific violation of international norms,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said. “While it is part of this ongoing Syrian conflict in which we have an interest and in which we have a clearly stated position, it is distinct in that regard.”
Obama and other officials have said repeatedly that no U.S. troops would be sent to Syria. But despite Obama’s year-old threat of an unspecified U.S. response if Assad crossed a “red line” by using chemical weapons, even a limited military engagement seemed unlikely before Wednesday’s attack near Damascus.
“This international norm cannot be violated without consequences,” Kerry said. [Well, expect by the American government which invaded both Iraq and Afghanistan]
The options under consideration are neither new nor open-ended, officials said. The use of “limited stand-off strikes” has long been among the options the Pentagon has provided Obama. “Potential targets include high-value regime air defense, air, ground, missile, and naval forces as well as the supporting military facilities and command nodes,” Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a June letter to Congress. “Stand-off air and missile systems could be used to strike hundreds of targets at a tempo of our choosing.”
Although Dempsey, who has questioned the wisdom of direct military involvement in Syria, said that such an operation would require “hundreds” of ships and aircraft and potentially cost “in the billions,” the action that is being contemplated would be far smaller and designed more to send a message than to cripple Assad’s military and change the balance of forces on the ground. Syrian chemical weapons storage areas, which are numerous and widely dispersed, are seen as unlikely targets.
The language of international criminality has clearly resonated among U.S. allies and lawmakers.
“We will have to act,” said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence who has long opposed any U.S. intervention, including the administration’s decision this summer to send light arms to Syrian opposition forces. “I don’t think we can allow repeated use of chemical weapons now, an escalated use of chemical weapons, to stand.” [Translation - with the wars winding down in Iraq and Afghanistan the American corporations in the military industrial complex need a new source of revenue and a war in Syria would be great!!!]
Sen. Bob Corker (Tenn.), the senior Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, emphasized that a U.S. strike should not be directed at altering the dynamic of Syria’s larger civil war. [Then why on earth are we going to bomb them??? Probably so we can look like tough guys!!!!]
“I think it should be surgical. It should be proportional. It should be in response to what’s happened with the chemicals,” Corker said in an NBC interview. “But the fact is, I don’t want us to get involved in such a way that we change that dynamic on the ground.” The senator said he thought the administration’s response to the attack was “imminent.”
House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said he had been in touch with the White House. In a statement, Boehner echoed concerns expressed by lawmakers from both parties that the administration further consult Congress before taking action.
The administration has said that it will follow international law in shaping its response. [Hey, I would be happy if you just followed the Constitution and got Congress to declare war on Syria before bombing them. But hey, when your are the American Emperor who needs to consult Congress] Authorization for the use of force against another nation normally comes only from the U.N. Security Council — where Russia and China have vetoed previous resolutions against Assad — or in a NATO operation similar to the one launched in the former Yugoslavia in 1999, without a U.N. mandate.
But much of international law is untested, [translation - we will use any lame excuse to bomb Syria] and administration lawyers are also examining possible legal justifications based on a violation of international prohibitions on chemical weapons use, or on an appeal for assistance from a neighboring nation such as Turkey.
Britain, France and Turkey have said that they would support action if the use of chemical weapons was confirmed, but a clear-cut case is also likely to make approval easier for allies such as Germany, which disagreed with NATO’s 2011 operation in Libya despite the existence of a U.N. resolution.
“The use of chemical weapons would be a crime against civilization,” German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said Monday. “The international community must act should the use of such weapons be confirmed.”
Consultations on Syria have been ongoing at the ambassadorial level at NATO headquarters in Brussels, where a meeting is scheduled for Wednesday. The Arab League, which approved the Libya operation, is also due to meet this week to discuss Syria.
Ed O’Keefe contributed to this report.
As Randolph Bourne said
Of course the rest of us will be taxed to pay for war profits which are giving all the folks in the military industrial complex smiles on their faces.
Well at least in America we won't have to worry about burying the dead people murdered by the American Empire. While us Americans pay the price of our masters wars thru our wallets, in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan they pay the price of our masters wars with dead bodies.
Hagel: U.S. military stands ready to strike Syria
Associated Press Tue Aug 27, 2013 7:03 AM
WASHINGTON — The U.S. military stands ready to strike Syria at once if President Barack Obama gives the order, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Tuesday as the United States prepared to formally declare that chemical weapons had been used in Syria’s civil war.
U.S. officials said the growing intelligence pointed strongly toward Bashar Assad’s government as the culprit in the chemical attack in the Damascus suburbs last week that activists say killed hundreds of people — a claim Assad called “preposterous.”
The U.S., along with allies in Europe, appeared to be laying the groundwork for the most aggressive response since the civil war began more than two years ago.
Two administration officials said the U.S. was expected to make public a more formal determination of chemical weapons use on Tuesday, with an announcement of Obama’s response likely to follow quickly. The officials insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the internal deliberations.
Secretary of State John Kerry has called the evidence of a large-scale chemical weapons attack “undeniable.” He said international standards against chemical weapons “cannot be violated without consequences.”
Any U.S. military action in Syria most likely would involve sea-launched cruise missile attacks on military targets. Officials said it was likely the targets would be tied to the regime’s ability to launch chemical weapons attacks. Possible targets would include weapons arsenals, command and control centers, radar and communications facilities and other military headquarters.
Less likely was a strike on a chemical weapons site because of the risk of releasing toxic gases.
Hagel told BBC television Tuesday that the Defense Department has “moved assets in place to be able to fulfill and comply with whatever option the president wishes to take.” The Navy has four destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean Sea within range of targets inside Syria. The U.S. also has warplanes in the region.
“We are ready to go,” said Hagel, speaking during a visit to the Southeast Asian nation of Brunei.
Hagel said “to me it’s clearer and clearer” that the Syrian government was responsible, but that the Obama administration was waiting for intelligence agencies to make the determination.
In London, Prime Minister David Cameron recalled Parliament for an urgent discussion Thursday on a possible military response. The British government said its military was drawing up contingency plans for a possible military attack. Italy, meanwhile, insisted that any strike must be authorized by the U.N. Security Council.
Assad has denied launching a chemical attack. In an interview published Tuesday on the website of the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency, Assad warned that if the U.S. attacks Syria, it will face “what it has been confronted with in every war since Vietnam: failure.”
Syrian activists say the Aug. 21 chemical attack killed hundreds. The group Doctors Without Borders put the death toll at 355 people.
The international community appeared to be considering action that would punish Assad for deploying deadly gases, not sweeping measures aimed at ousting the Syrian leader or strengthening rebel forces.
“This is about the violation of an international norm against the use of chemical weapons and how we should respond to that,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said.
A United Nations team already on the ground in Syria has collected evidence from last week’s attack. The team came under sniper fire Monday as it traveled to the site of the Aug. 21 attack and on Tuesday delayed a second inspection.
The U.S. said Syria’s delay in giving the inspectors access rendered their investigation meaningless, and officials said the administration had its own intelligence confirming chemical weapons use and planned to make it public in the coming days.
It’s unlikely that the U.S. would launch a strike against Syria while the United Nations team is still in the country. A U.N. spokeswoman said the inspection team might need longer than the planned 14 days to complete its work.
Officials said there was “very little doubt” that the chemical attack originated with the Assad regime, noting that Syria’s rebel forces do not appear to have access to the country’s chemical weapons stockpile.
It’s unclear whether Obama would seek authority from the U.N. or Congress before using force. It is likely Russia and China would block U.S. efforts to authorize action through the U.N. Security Council.
More than 100,000 people have died in clashes between forces loyal to Assad and rebels trying to oust him from power. While Obama has repeatedly called for Assad to leave power, he has resisted calls for a robust U.S. intervention and has largely limited American assistance to humanitarian aid.
Obama has ruled out putting U.S. troops on the ground in Syria, and officials say they are not considering setting up a unilateral no-fly zone.
Will Emperor Obama invade Syria???
When I was at Circle K, the front page article on USA Today had an article on cruse missiles which President Obama will probably use to bomb Syria.
"War is the health of the state".
I suspect smiles will be on the faces of all the folks that are involved with the military industrial complex, because war means big bucks for them.
Obama considering limited military strike on Syria
Source
Will Emperor Obama invade Syria???
When I was at Circle K, the front page article on USA Today had an article on cruse missiles which President Obama will probably use to bomb Syria.
"War is the health of the state".
I suspect smiles will be on the faces of all the folks that are involved with the military industrial complex, because war means big bucks for them.
Obama considering limited military strike on Syria
Source
After Syria chemical allegations, Obama considering limited military strike
By Karen DeYoung and Anne Gearan, Published: August 26
President Obama is weighing a military strike against Syria that would be of limited scope and duration, designed to serve as punishment for Syria’s use of chemical weapons and as a deterrent, while keeping the United States out of deeper involvement in that country’s civil war, according to senior administration officials.
The timing of such an attack, which would probably last no more than two days and involve sea-launched cruise missiles — or, possibly, long-range bombers — striking military targets not directly related to Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal, would be dependent on three factors: completion of an intelligence report assessing Syrian government culpability in last week’s alleged chemical attack; ongoing consultation with allies and Congress; and determination of a justification under international law.
The Obama administration toughened its criticism of Syria's alleged chemical weapons use, with Secretary of State John Kerry cutting his vacation short to address the crisis as the U.S. considers possible military actions.
The Obama administration toughened its criticism of Syria's alleged chemical weapons use, with Secretary of State John Kerry cutting his vacation short to address the crisis as the U.S. considers possible military actions.
“We’re actively looking at the various legal angles that would inform a decision,” [legal angles??? As one bank robber to the other said, let's rob this bank because they don't have any armed guards like the other bank. Emperor Obama doesn't mind invading a small country like Syria that can't defend themselves, but he certainly won't bomb a country with nuclear weapons that can defend it's self like North Korea.] said an official who spoke about the presidential deliberations on the condition of anonymity. Missile-armed U.S. warships are already positioned in the Mediterranean.
As the administration moved rapidly toward a decision, Secretary of State John F. Kerry said the use of chemical weapons in an attack Wednesday against opposition strongholds on the outskirts of Damascus is now “undeniable.”
Evidence being gathered by United Nations experts in Syria was important, Kerry said, but not necessary to prove what is already “grounded in facts, informed by conscience and guided by common sense.”
The team of U.N. weapons investigators on Monday visited one of three rebel-held suburbs where the alleged attack took place, after first being forced to withdraw when their vehicles came under sniper fire. The Syrian government, which along with Russia has suggested that the rebels were responsible for the chemical attack, agreed to the U.N. inspection over the weekend.
Videos and statements by witnesses and relief organizations such as Doctors Without Borders have proved that an attack occurred, Kerry said. The U.S. intelligence report is to be released this week.
Among the factors, officials said, are that only the government is known to possess chemical weapons and the rockets to deliver them, and its continuing control of chemical stocks has been closely monitored by U.S. intelligence.
Kerry said Syrian forces had engaged in a “cynical attempt to cover up” their actions, not only by delaying the arrival of the U.N. team but by shelling the affected area continually. Any U.S. strike would probably await the departure of the U.N. inspectors from Syria.
Kerry’s statement, which he read to reporters in the State Department briefing room without taking questions, was part of an escalating administration drumbeat, which is likely to include a public statement by Obama in coming days. Officials said the public warnings are designed partly to wring any possible cooperation out of Russia — or an unlikely admission from the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — before Obama makes his decision.
The administration decided to postpone a meeting with the Russians this week in The Hague to discuss a negotiated solution to the Syrian war, “given our ongoing consultations about the appropriate response to the chemical weapons attack in Syria on August 21,” a State Department official said.
At the State Department, Kerry said, “Make no mistake: President Obama believes there must be accountability for those who would use the world’s most heinous weapons against the world’s most vulnerable people. Nothing today is more serious, and nothing is receiving more serious scrutiny.”
He and other officials drew a sharp distinction between U.S. action related to a violation of international law by what they called Assad’s “massive” use of chemical weapons and any direct military involvement in the Syrian conflict, which is in its third year. [Of course lets forget about America's invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan which both were almost certainly violations of international law.]
“What we are talking about here is a potential response . . . to this specific violation of international norms,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said. “While it is part of this ongoing Syrian conflict in which we have an interest and in which we have a clearly stated position, it is distinct in that regard.”
Obama and other officials have said repeatedly that no U.S. troops would be sent to Syria. But despite Obama’s year-old threat of an unspecified U.S. response if Assad crossed a “red line” by using chemical weapons, even a limited military engagement seemed unlikely before Wednesday’s attack near Damascus.
“This international norm cannot be violated without consequences,” Kerry said. [Well, expect by the American government which invaded both Iraq and Afghanistan]
The options under consideration are neither new nor open-ended, officials said. The use of “limited stand-off strikes” has long been among the options the Pentagon has provided Obama. “Potential targets include high-value regime air defense, air, ground, missile, and naval forces as well as the supporting military facilities and command nodes,” Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a June letter to Congress. “Stand-off air and missile systems could be used to strike hundreds of targets at a tempo of our choosing.”
Although Dempsey, who has questioned the wisdom of direct military involvement in Syria, said that such an operation would require “hundreds” of ships and aircraft and potentially cost “in the billions,” the action that is being contemplated would be far smaller and designed more to send a message than to cripple Assad’s military and change the balance of forces on the ground. Syrian chemical weapons storage areas, which are numerous and widely dispersed, are seen as unlikely targets.
The language of international criminality has clearly resonated among U.S. allies and lawmakers.
“We will have to act,” said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence who has long opposed any U.S. intervention, including the administration’s decision this summer to send light arms to Syrian opposition forces. “I don’t think we can allow repeated use of chemical weapons now, an escalated use of chemical weapons, to stand.” [Translation - with the wars winding down in Iraq and Afghanistan the American corporations in the military industrial complex need a new source of revenue and a war in Syria would be great!!!]
Sen. Bob Corker (Tenn.), the senior Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, emphasized that a U.S. strike should not be directed at altering the dynamic of Syria’s larger civil war. [Then why on earth are we going to bomb them??? Probably so we can look like tough guys!!!!]
“I think it should be surgical. It should be proportional. It should be in response to what’s happened with the chemicals,” Corker said in an NBC interview. “But the fact is, I don’t want us to get involved in such a way that we change that dynamic on the ground.” The senator said he thought the administration’s response to the attack was “imminent.”
House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said he had been in touch with the White House. In a statement, Boehner echoed concerns expressed by lawmakers from both parties that the administration further consult Congress before taking action.
The administration has said that it will follow international law in shaping its response. [Hey, I would be happy if you just followed the Constitution and got Congress to declare war on Syria before bombing them. But hey, when your are the American Emperor who needs to consult Congress] Authorization for the use of force against another nation normally comes only from the U.N. Security Council — where Russia and China have vetoed previous resolutions against Assad — or in a NATO operation similar to the one launched in the former Yugoslavia in 1999, without a U.N. mandate.
But much of international law is untested, [translation - we will use any lame excuse to bomb Syria] and administration lawyers are also examining possible legal justifications based on a violation of international prohibitions on chemical weapons use, or on an appeal for assistance from a neighboring nation such as Turkey.
Britain, France and Turkey have said that they would support action if the use of chemical weapons was confirmed, but a clear-cut case is also likely to make approval easier for allies such as Germany, which disagreed with NATO’s 2011 operation in Libya despite the existence of a U.N. resolution.
“The use of chemical weapons would be a crime against civilization,” German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said Monday. “The international community must act should the use of such weapons be confirmed.”
Consultations on Syria have been ongoing at the ambassadorial level at NATO headquarters in Brussels, where a meeting is scheduled for Wednesday. The Arab League, which approved the Libya operation, is also due to meet this week to discuss Syria.
Ed O’Keefe contributed to this report.
Monster rocket to blast off from Pacific coast, rattle Southland
Source
Monster rocket to blast off from Pacific coast, rattle Southland
By W.J. Hennigan
August 27, 2013, 6:05 a.m.
The nation’s largest rocket is ready to blast off from Vandenberg Air Force Base north of Santa Barbara, carrying a massive, top-secret spy satellite for the federal government.
As early as 10:52 a.m. Wednesday, the 235-foot Delta IV Heavy rocket will lift off from the base's Space Launch Complex 6, leaving a thick white plume over the Pacific.
The rocket, the tallest ever to be launched from the base, is set to place a classified spacecraft into polar orbit for the National Reconnaissance Office, the covert umbrella agency that operates spy satellites.
Southland residents eager to see the blastoff can head to the beaches or the mountains for a glimpse. But it may be difficult to see because it's a daytime launch.
Air Force security and local police have closed nearby locations, such as San Miguelito Canyon and Jalama Beach County Park, as a precaution.
Although little is publicly known about what exactly the rocket will be carrying into space, analysts say it is probably a $1-billion high-powered spy satellite capable of snapping pictures detailed enough to distinguish the make and model of an automobile hundreds of miles below.
This is the second time that a Delta IV Heavy rocket will be launched from Vandenberg. The first time, in January 2011, a sound wave as loud as a freight train swept over nearby Lompoc, a town of about 43,000.
Some people reported hearing the rocket’s roar as far away as 50 miles. Vehicles were pulling off and stopping on the southbound shoulder of U.S. 101 to watch it hurtle into the afternoon sky.
The rocket was built by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co. It made its maiden flight in 2004 and is capable of lifting payloads of up to 24 tons into low Earth orbit.
Three hydrogen-fueled engines — each roughly the size of a pickup truck — will guzzle nearly a ton of propellants per second to provide 17 million horsepower. When the engines do roar to life, more than 200 Aerojet-Rocketdyne engineers and technicians will be watching.
It took the company five years to develop the engines at the company's sprawling Canoga Park facility during the 1990s. It was also where the engine parts were fabricated before being assembled in Mississippi.
Wednesday’s mission, designated NROL-65, has been on schedule for months.
Although Cape Canaveral, Fla., is the launch site for NASA's civilian space program, Vandenberg has been the site of military space projects for more than half a century.
Vandenberg, a 98,000-acre base along the Pacific, has been the primary site for launching spy satellites since the beginning of the Cold War because of its ideal location for putting satellites into a north-to-south orbit.
Space Launch Complex 6 is known on base as “Slick Six.” The launch pad was built in the 1960s and later was intended to accommodate space shuttle launches, but they remained in Florida. Since then, the pad has gone through many renovations. Most recently, Vandenberg spent $100 million on upgrades over three years.
The launch is slated to be webcast beginning at 10:32 a.m. at rocket maker United Launch Alliance's website at www.ulalaunch.com.
Uncle Sam has your Facebook password???
SourceFacebook: Governments demanded data on 38K users
By Matt Apuzzo Associated Press Tue Aug 27, 2013 6:50 AM
WASHINGTON — Government agents in 74 countries demanded information on about 38,000 Facebook users in the first half of this year, with about half the orders coming from authorities in the United States, the company said Tuesday.
The social-networking giant is the latest technology company to release figures on how often governments seek information about its customers. Microsoft and Google have done the same.
As with the other companies, it’s hard to discern much from Facebook’s data, besides the fact that, as users around the globe flocked to the world’s largest social network, police and intelligence agencies followed.
Facebook and Twitter have become organizing platforms for activists and, as such, have become targets for governments. During anti-government protests in Turkey in May and June, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called social media “the worst menace to society.”
At the time, Facebook denied it provided information about protest organizers to the Turkish government.
Data released Tuesday show authorities in Turkey submitted 96 requests covering 173 users. Facebook said it provided some information in about 45 of those cases, but there’s no information on what was turned over and why.
“We fight many of these requests, pushing back when we find legal deficiencies and narrowing the scope of overly broad or vague requests,” Colin Stretch, Facebook’s general counsel company said in a blog post. “When we are required to comply with a particular request, we frequently share only basic user information, such as name.”
Facebook and other technology companies have been criticized for helping the National Security Agency secretly collect data on customers. Federal law gives government the authority to demand data without specific warrants, and while companies can fight requests in secret court hearings, it’s an uphill battle.
Facebook turned over some data in response to about 60 percent of those requests.
It’s not clear from the Facebook data how many of the roughly 26,000 government requests on 38,000 users were for law-enforcement purposes and how many were for intelligence gathering.
Technology and government officials have said criminal investigations are far more common than national security matters as a justification for demanding information from companies.
The numbers are imprecise because the federal government forbids companies from revealing how many times they’ve been ordered to turn over information about their customers. Facebook released only a range of figures for the United States.
The company said it planned to start releasing these figures regularly.
U.N. warns U.S. against illegal spying on diplomats
F*ck international law, I'm the American Emperor and can do anything I want!!! That's probably what President Obama is thinking.According to the US Constitution any treaties the America government enters into must be obeyed before the normal laws passed by Congress and must be obeyed.
Of course the US government doesn't seem to be willing to obey laws that it has agreed to obey when it signed onto treaties any more then it is willing to obey the requirements of the Bill of Rights, such as the 4th Amendment which says it won't spy on us without a search warrant, issued by a court based on probable cause!!!
U.N. warns U.S. against illegal spying on diplomats
By Carol J. Williams
August 26, 2013, 2:15 p.m.
United Nations officials on Monday reacted to the latest leaks about U.S. National Security Agency spying with a reminder to the Obama administration of its legal obligation to respect the “inviolability” of diplomatic missions on U.S. soil.
The German news magazine Der Spiegel reported over the weekend that the NSA, already under fire for reported intelligence gathering on private phone calls and emails around the world, had also infiltrated the U.N. video-conferencing network to eavesdrop on diplomatic missions in New York.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and other officials are “aware of the reports and intend to be in touch with the relevant authorities,” spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters at the daily news briefing at U.N. headquarters.
The United States, as host country for the United Nations and its member delegations, is obliged by “well-established international law” to respect the privacy and sovereignty of national and multinational missions, Haq said.
“Member states are expected to act accordingly to protect the inviolability of diplomatic missions,” Haq said.
Der Spiegel reported in its latest issue that its reporters had analyzed secret NSA documents leaked by fugitive intelligence contractor Edward Snowden that disclosed how the U.S. agency gained access to the U.N. communications systems. The respected German magazine also reported that the NSA, in its clandestine surveillance, had discovered similar spying activity conducted by China that U.S. analysts were able to comb for important intelligence insights.
The magazine laid out in detail how the NSA acquired floor plans and diagrams of the European Union's new diplomatic mission at the United Nations in September 2012 in an operation code-named Apalachee.
Under the 1961 Vienna Convention and other international accords, Haq said, the United States is prohibited from conducting covert operations at the United Nations and its associated foreign missions.
The NSA used traditional wiretapping devices to intercept U.N. communications, Der Spiegel said. It also reported that the agency infiltrated the computer networks of foreign diplomatic missions in Washington, including the EU delegation headquarters, and copied computer hard drives.
The magazine referred to an "internal presentation" summing up an NSA objective to acquire "information superiority," not just in its counter-terrorism intelligence gathering, but also with programs aimed at drug trafficking, organized crime and "traditional espionage targeting foreign governments."
NYPD designates mosques as terrorism organizations
Didn't Hitler say the same thing about Jewish groups???? OK, I'm just joking, but Hitler was probably thinking about it even if he didn't.NYPD designates mosques as terrorism organizations
By Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo Associated Press
Wed Aug 28, 2013 7:28 AM
NEW YORK — The New York Police Department has secretly labeled entire mosques as terrorist organizations, a designation that allows police to use informants to record sermons and spy on imams, often without specific evidence of criminal wrongdoing.
Designating an entire mosque as a terrorism enterprise means that anyone who attends prayer services there is a potential subject of an investigation and fair game for surveillance.
Since the 9/11 attacks, the NYPD has opened at least a dozen “terrorism enterprise investigations” into mosques, according to interviews and confidential police documents. The TEI, as it is known, is a police tool intended to help investigate terrorist cells and the like.
Many TEIs stretch for years, allowing surveillance to continue even though the NYPD has never criminally charged a mosque or Islamic organization with operating as a terrorism enterprise.
The documents show in detail how, in its hunt for terrorists, the NYPD investigated countless innocent New York Muslims and put information about them in secret police files. As a tactic, opening an enterprise investigation on a mosque is so potentially invasive that while the NYPD conducted at least a dozen, the FBI never did one, according to interviews with federal law enforcement officials.
The strategy has allowed the NYPD to send undercover officers into mosques and attempt to plant informants on the boards of mosques and at least one prominent Arab-American group in Brooklyn, whose executive director has worked with city officials, including Bill de Blasio, a front-runner for mayor.
The revelations about the NYPD’s massive spying operations are in documents recently obtained by The Associated Press and part of a new book, “Enemies Within: Inside the NYPD’s Secret Spying Unit and bin Laden’s Final Plot Against America.” The book by AP reporters Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman is based on hundreds of previously unpublished police files and interviews with current and former NYPD, CIA and FBI officials.
The disclosures come as the NYPD is fighting off lawsuits accusing it of engaging in racial profiling while combating crime. Earlier this month, a judge ruled that the department’s use of the stop-and-frisk tactic was unconstitutional.
The American Civil Liberties Union and two other groups have sued, saying the Muslim spying programs are unconstitutional and make Muslims afraid to practice their faith without police scrutiny.
Both Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly have denied those accusations. Speaking Wednesday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Kelly reminded people that his intelligence-gathering programs began in the wake of 9/11.
“We follow leads wherever they take us,” Kelly said. “We’re not intimidated as to wherever that lead takes us. And we’re doing that to protect the people of New York City.”
***
The NYPD did not limit its operations to collecting information on those who attended the mosques or led prayers. The department sought also to put people on the boards of New York’s Islamic institutions to fill intelligence gaps.
One confidential NYPD document shows police wanted to put informants in leadership positions at mosques and other organizations, including the Arab American Association of New York in Brooklyn, a secular social-service organization.
Linda Sarsour, the executive director, said her group helps new immigrants adjust to life in the U.S. It was not clear whether the department was successful in its plans.
The document, which appears to have been created around 2009, was prepared for Kelly and distributed to the NYPD’s debriefing unit, which helped identify possible informants.
Around that time, Kelly was handing out medals to the Arab American Association’s soccer team, Brooklyn United, smiling and congratulating its players for winning the NYPD’s soccer league.
Sarsour, a Muslim who has met with Kelly many times, said she felt betrayed.
“It creates mistrust in our organizations,” said Sarsour, who was born and raised in Brooklyn. “It makes one wonder and question who is sitting on the boards of the institutions where we work and pray.”
***
Before the NYPD could target mosques as terrorist groups, it had to persuade a federal judge to rewrite rules governing how police can monitor speech protected by the First Amendment.
The rules stemmed from a 1971 lawsuit, dubbed the Handschu case after lead plaintiff Barbara Handschu, over how the NYPD spied on protesters and liberals during the Vietnam War era.
David Cohen, a former CIA executive who became NYPD’s deputy commissioner for intelligence in 2002, said the old rules didn’t apply to fighting against terrorism.
Cohen told the judge that mosques could be used “to shield the work of terrorists from law enforcement scrutiny by taking advantage of restrictions on the investigation of First Amendment activity.”
NYPD lawyers proposed a new tactic, the TEI, that allowed officers to monitor political or religious speech whenever the “facts or circumstances reasonably indicate” that groups of two or more people were involved in plotting terrorism or other violent crime.
The judge rewrote the Handschu rules in 2003. In the first eight months under the new rules, the NYPD’s Intelligence Division opened at least 15 secret terrorism enterprise investigations, documents show. At least 10 targeted mosques.
Doing so allowed police, in effect, to treat anyone who attends prayer services as a potential suspect. Sermons, ordinarily protected by the First Amendment, could be monitored and recorded.
Among the mosques targeted as early as 2003 was the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge.
“I have never felt free in the United States. The documents tell me I am right,” Zein Rimawi, one of the Bay Ridge mosque’s leaders, said after reviewing an NYPD document describing his mosque as a terrorist enterprise.
Rimawi, 59, came to the U.S. decades ago from the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
“Ray Kelly, shame on him,” he said. “I am American.”
***
The NYPD believed the tactics were necessary to keep the city safe, a view that sometimes put it at odds with the FBI.
In August 2003, Cohen asked the FBI to install eavesdropping equipment inside a mosque called Masjid al-Farooq, including its prayer room.
Al-Farooq had a long history of radical ties. Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian sheik who was convicted of plotting to blow up New York City landmarks, once preached briefly at Al-Farooq. Invited preachers raged against Israel, the United States and the Bush administration’s war on terror.
One of Cohen’s informants said an imam from another mosque had delivered $30,000 to an al-Farooq leader, and the NYPD suspected the money was for terrorism.
But Amy Jo Lyons, the FBI assistant special agent in charge for counterterrorism, refused to bug the mosque. She said the federal law wouldn’t permit it.
The NYPD made other arrangements. Cohen’s informants began to carry recording devices into mosques under investigation. They hid microphones in wristwatches and the electronic key fobs used to unlock car doors.
Even under a TEI, a prosecutor and a judge would have to approve bugging a mosque. But the informant taping was legal because New York law allows any party to record a conversation, even without consent from the others. Like the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge, the NYPD never demonstrated in court that al-Farooq was a terrorist enterprise but that didn’t stop the police from spying on the mosques for years.
And under the new Handschu guidelines, no one outside the NYPD could question the secret practice.
Martin Stolar, one of the lawyers in the Handschu case, said it’s clear the NYPD used enterprise investigations to justify open-ended surveillance. The NYPD should only tape conversations about building bombs or plotting attacks, he said.
“Every Muslim is a potential terrorist? It is completely unacceptable,” he said. “It really tarnishes all of us and tarnishes our system of values.”
***
Al-Ansar Center, a windowless Sunni mosque, opened in Brooklyn several years ago, attracting young Arabs and South Asians. NYPD officers feared the mosque was a breeding ground for terrorists, so informants kept tabs on it.
One NYPD report noted that members were fixing up the basement, turning it into a gym.
“They also want to start Jiujitsu classes,” it said.
The NYPD was particularly alarmed about Mohammad Elshinawy, 26, an Islamic teacher at several New York mosques, including Al-Ansar. Elshinawy was a Salafist — a follower of a puritanical Islamic movement — whose father was an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center attacks, according to NYPD documents.
The FBI also investigated whether Elshinawy recruited people to wage violent jihad overseas. But the two agencies investigated him very differently.
The FBI closed the case after many months without any charges. Federal investigators never infiltrated Al-Ansar.
“Nobody had any information the mosque was engaged in terrorism activities,” a former federal law enforcement official recalled, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the investigation.
The NYPD wasn’t convinced. A 2008 surveillance document described Elshinawy as “a young spiritual leader (who) lectures and gives speeches at dozens of venues” and noted, “He has orchestrated camping trips and paintball trips.”
The NYPD deemed him a threat in part because “he is so highly regarded by so many young and impressionable individuals.”
No part of Elshinawy’s life was out of bounds. His mosque was the target of a TEI. The NYPD conducted surveillance at his wedding. An informant recorded the wedding and police videotaped everyone who came and went.
“We have nothing on the lucky bride at this time but hopefully will learn about her at the service,” one lieutenant wrote.
Four years later, the NYPD was still watching Elshinawy without charging him. He is now a plaintiff in the ACLU lawsuit against the NYPD.
“These new NYPD spying disclosures confirm the experiences and worst fears of New York’s Muslims,” ACLU lawyer Hina Shamsi said. “From houses of worship to a wedding, there’s no area of New York Muslim religious or personal life that the NYPD has not invaded through its bias-based surveillance policy.”
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