Attorney General Eric Holder agreed to a review of Justice Department guidelines for investigations involving journalists, President Barack Obama said Thursday.
By Michael Isikoff
National Investigative Correspondent, NBC News
The Justice Department pledged Friday to to review its policies relating to the seizure of information from journalists after acknowledging that a controversial search warrant for a Fox News reporter’s private emails was approved “at the highest levels” of the Justice Department, including “discussions” with Attorney General Eric Holder.
The statement, confirming an NBC News account of Holder’s role, defended the secret warrant to obtain reporter James Rosen’s emails as a legitimate step to obtain evidence as part of an investigation of Stephen Kim. A former intelligence analyst, Kim has since been indicted under the Espionage Act for leaking classified information to Rosen about North Korea. He has denied the charges.
In a 2010 affidavit in support of the search warrant, an FBI agent named Rosen as a possible “co-conspirator” in the case because he “asked, solicited and encouraged” Kim to give him information.
“After extensive deliberations, and after following all applicable laws, regulations and policies, the Department sought an appropriately tailored search warrant under the Privacy Protection Act,” said a department official, referring to a federal law that governs under what circumstances information can be subpoenaed from the news media. “And a federal magistrate judge made an independent finding that probable cause existed to approve the search warrant.”
Nevertheless, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Holder “understands the concerns that have been raised by the media and has initiated a re-evaluation of existing department policies and procedures.” The official said the department must strike “the appropriate balance” between preventing leaks of classified information and “First Amendment rights,”adding that passage of a new media shield law “and appropriate updates to the department”s internal guidelines” will help achieve that.
The wife of Ibrahim Todashev who was killed Wednesday during a scandalous FBI interrogation in Florida says she was sure her husband participated neither in April’s Boston Marathon bombings nor in a 2011 triple murder that US law-enforcement agents now suggest involved her late husband. “Everything was a setup”, she said.
Reni Manukyan, a 24-year-old assistant hotel-housekeeping manager who married Ibragim Todashev in July 2010, says agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrived at her house in Atlanta and her mom’s house in Savannah, Ga., late Tuesday night, the same time they started questioning her husband at his home in Orlando.
An interesting detail that Ms Manukyan supposedly did not know about was that Todashev had a girlfriend named Tatiana Gruzdeva (this may be her Facebook page), who was arrested by ICE on May 16 and is currently in custody for immigration violations. Whether it was a coincidence or a pre-planned detention by the FBI is debatable.
Ms Manukyan, an Armenian who moved to the US in early 2006, met her husband in 2010 through a mutual friend in Boston. Even though she and Todashev were separated since last November they remained good friends. Up until Tuesday the two had been in regular contact and Ms Manukian even partly supported her husband financially through their joint bank account. The grieving widow last saw her husband last week when he came to visit her in Atlanta.
Judging by Ms Manukyan’s account in one of the popular European social networks she spent past few months in her home-country Armenia where she stayed from March 24 till April 6 visiting her brother and mother, who, allegedly serves in Armenian army. Later on Ms Manukyan went to Russia’s Volgograd to attend her good friend’s wedding and on April 22 she returned back to the US where she is now staying. On March 23 the widow posted a message on her wall saying: “killing my husband Ibragim was another prove that everything is set up about Tsarnaevs brothers as well”.
According to Ms Manukyan, FBI agents who came to question her primarily asked about alleged Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev and her husband’s relationship with him. The widow claimed she was never asked about 2011 Waltham massacre in which three victims—25-year-old Brendan Mess, 31-year-old Erik Weissman and 37-year-old Raphael Teken—were found dead with their throats slit and bodies covered in marijuana and cash.
“They never, ever—in all the interviews that I had and all the interviews that he had—never did they mention anything about a murder,” said Ms Manukyan. “Everything was about the bombing and about him knowing Tamerlan. They would show me a picture of Tamerlan or Tamerlan’s wife or some other guys that I haven’t a clue who they are, but nothing about a murder—nothing ever.”
She also added that even if she was asked about 2011 incident she would have found it very difficult to believe that her husband was involved because he did not have any American associates. Instead, he was mainly friends with other immigrants who moved to the US from Russia. Ms Manukyan also said that given that Todashev did “not do drugs, he did not smoke, and didn’t even drink alcohol,” she finds it extremely daunting that her husband could have been accused of Waltham massacre.
Todashev’s close friend and former roommate Khusen Taramov also claimed Todashov was never questioned about the Waltham murders. “We told each other everything, everything,” Taramov said. “He never said anything about any murder and they never asked him anything about that. Just about the bombings and Tsarnaev.”
Ms Manukyan also claimed she did not believe Todashev could have pulled a knife on the law-enforcement agents. She asserted that her husband had never had a pocket knife and that during interrogation he would have been very far from the kitchen to grab a kitchen knife. The widow also noted that Todashev was recovering from a knee surgery and was still learning to walk properly which made it senseless for him to attack an FBI agent.
Todashev’s father, Abdulbaki Todashev, concurred that his son was disabled by knee surgery earlier this year.
As for Todashev’s relationship with Tsarnaev, Ms Manukyan said that the men were briefly acquainted because they shared some things in common: both came from one country, both were interested in martial arts, and both were living in the Boston area. “They had a chat because they were from the same country,” she said. “It was a small community. They all knew each other.” “I believe Tamerlan only called him once and asked him how he was doing after the surgery,” she claimed.
Wife of man killed by FBI agent says he was never questioned about Waltham triple murder
05/23/2013 2:44 PM
By Wesley Lowery, Globe Staff
ORLANDO — The wife and best friend of the Chechen man shot and killed here by an FBI agent on Wednesday insisted today that authorities never questioned him, or them, prior to the fatal confrontation, about an unsolved triple slaying in Waltham, Mass., just outside of Boston.
Ibragim Todashev, 27, a friend of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was shot and killed after allegedly attacking an FBI agent who was interviewing him along with two Massachusetts State Police troopers.
Todashev acknowledged a role in the 2011 triple homicide when he attacked the agent early Wednesday with a blade, the Globe reported today. Todashev was not considered a suspect in the Marathon terror attacks, law enforcement officials told the Globe.
Todashev’s wife, Reni Manukyan, said her husband could not have been involved in the Waltham murders, and that the subject had never been brought up in FBI interviews.
Manukyan, 24, said today that Todashev told her that his previous interviews with law enforcement dealt with just two subjects: the Boston Marathon bombing and Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
Manukyan, who separated from Todashev in November, said that in her own interview with the FBI, conducted in Georgia where she lives, the unsolved murders were never mentioned.
“It never, ever came up,” she said, wiping tears from beneath her sunglasses. “Everything they asked was about the bombing.”
Middlesex District Attorney Marian T. Ryan issued a statement today defending the pace of the Waltham investigation, a statement that also made clear Ryan’s office believes it is constrained by ethics rules for lawyers from publicly discussing it.
“While we can not discuss details pertaining to the investigation, including evidence, suspects or witnesses, this office and its law enforcement partners have conducted a thorough, far-reaching investigation beginning in 2011 when this horrific crime occurred,’’ Ryan said in the statement. “This investigation has not concluded and is by no means closed.’’
The photo and the FBI lead investigator says that both bombs were in black backpacks – see below — BUT TSARNAEV’S BACKPACK IN EVERY SHOT OF IT IS WHITE — except the shot released by the FBI to identify the “suspects.”
Don’t underestimate the importance of this.
Will someone watching a lot of news please tell me how this is being explained?
Details and photos establishing this follow:
At 2:49 p.m. EDT (18:49 UTC), about two hours after the winner crossed the finish line,[13] but with more than 5,700 runners yet to finish,[14] two bombs detonated on Boylston Street near Copley Square about 180 yards (170 m) apart,[15][16] just before the finish line.[11] The first exploded outside Marathon Sports at 671–673 Boylston Street at 2:49:43 p.m. EDT.[17] At the time of the first explosion, the race clock at the finish line showed 04:09:43.[18] The second bomb was located one block farther west at 755 Boylston Street and exploded at 2:49:57 p.m. EDT,[13][19] about 13 seconds after the first one.[3] fill the sidewalk behind race barricades after the explosions blow metal pellets and nails into victims’ legs. Race tents become makeshift trauma units.
Investigators believe the bombs were hidden in black nylon backpacks and housed inside sealable metal pots called pressure cookers. Pressure cooker bombs can help boost the power of relatively small devices by briefly constraining the blast. And when the cookers do explode, they can add large chunks of metal to the shrapnel spray. The IEDs have been popular with terrorists. Al Qaeda published a how-to recipe in an online Jihadi magazine. Several of the bombs were used in the 2006 attack on trains in Mumbai, India.
At a news conference late Tuesday afternoon in Boston, FBI Special Agent in Charge, Richard Deslauriers, indicated that the range of suspect and motive is “wide open,” and that the investigation is still in its “infancy.” He also mentioned that the FBI had received about 2,000 tips as of noon as agents looked for any photographic or video evidence from witnesses.
Deslauriers also said that both explosive devices appears to have been placed in a black nylon bag or backpack. A law enforcement source told CBS News senior investigative producer Pat Milton that investigators also found pieces of an electronic circuit board possibly indicating a timer was used in the detonation of the bomb.
Dick Eastman note: The FBI released the ONLY picture in which you cannot tell that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is carrying a white backpack over his shoulder!!!! Now we understand their selectivity and their reluctance to show more pictures to aid the manhunt.
Without an arrest three days after the blasts, investigators at about 6 p.m. publicly release images of the two alleged bombing suspects taken from a Lord & Taylor department store surveillance camera.
The man who became known as “Suspect No. 1″ is wearing a black baseball cap, and “Suspect No. 2″ has a white baseball cap on backwards and is carrying a black backpack. Authorities say they suspect the dark backpack was left in front of the Forum Restaurant on Boylston Street on Monday and then exploded — the second blast. Read Full Article Here
2 FBI Agents Involved in Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s Arrest “FALL” Out of Helicopter and Die
Remember that scene in Scarface?
2 FBI Agents Involved in Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s Arrest “FALL” Out of Helicopter and Die
Remember that scene in Scarface?
Two members of the FBI’s elite counterterrorism unit died Friday while practicing how to quickly drop from a helicopter to a ship using a rope, the FBI announced Monday in a statement.
The statement gave few details regarding the deaths of Special Agents Christopher Lorek and Stephen Shaw, other than to say the helicopter encountered unspecified difficulties and the agents fell a “significant distance.”
Last month, the team was involved in the arrest of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings……
Details are few at this point, but it’s being reported via several media outlets that two members of the special FBI Hostage Rescue Team (involved in arresting 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev) have died after “falling from a helicopter” into the ocean.
The Hostage Rescue Team is “part of the Tactical Support Branch of the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group. It is based at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia.” Source
The statement gave few details regarding the deaths of Special Agents Christopher Lorek and Stephen Shaw, other than to say the helicopter encountered unspecified difficulties and the agents fell a “significant distance.”
A law enforcement source told The Pilot the incident happened about 12 nautical miles off the coast of Virginia Beach. The official blamed bad weather for the incident and said the agents – members of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, based in Quantico – fell into the water. The official said he believed the agents died as a result of the impact rather than drowning.
Glenn McBride, a spokesman for the state medical examiner’s office, said it could be months before his staff can release a final cause and manner of death for the two agents. He said they must wait for the results of routine toxicology tests.
[...]
In interviews Monday, the founder of the Hostage Rescue Team and other former special agents called the unit “elite” while outlining the difficult training exercises members must endure.
“It’s the most rigorous training regiment in law enforcement, probably in the world,” said Danny Coulson, a former deputy assistant director of the FBI who started the team 30 years ago and served as its first commander. “They have to be able to do any mission, at any time.”
Among other things, members of the Hostage Rescue Team are trained to rappel from helicopters, scuba dive and use explosives to break down doors and walls. When needed, the team can deploy within four hours to anywhere in the U.S.
“It sounds risky, and it absolutely is,” Coulson said. “They have the same skill sets as SEAL Team 6 and Delta Force.”
In all, the team has responded to more than 850 incidents involving terrorism, violent crimes and foreign counterintelligence, according to the FBI’s website.
Last month, the team was involved in the arrest of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings. And in February, it rescued a 5-year-old boy held hostage for six days in an underground bunker in Alabama.
“Whenever things go really wrong, the FBI calls in the Hostage Rescue Team. It’s the government’s 911,” Coulson said.
You know this will probably not be a very popular thing to say. However on the heels of the outrage over the lack of respect of Obama in regards to a Marine holding an umbrella for him. It seems to me that we as Americans are losing sight of the sense of Respect. I am not an Obama supporter. there are many things he has done and plans to do that I am not in agreement with. That being said I have a question.
What ever happened to civility?
When did it become ok to be rude, obnoxious and just plain disrespectful and be proud of it?
Whether we agree with the man or not, there is a certain amount of respect that must me given the Office .
You don’t have to agree with him or even like him, but you have to respect the office. I know people are frustrated and angry, but that does not excuse the degradation of civility. We must be able to express our differences in a respectful manner. Otherwise how can we demand respect in return if we are willing to lower ourselves to this type of behavior. This is exactly the type of behavior that was criticized from Occupy. No respect, no civility, just right in your face screaming and yelling disrespect. You cannot have it both ways. You either behave the way you would have others behave or you accept that you will be treated disrespectfully because civility has gone to hell in a hand basket and no one cares.
That is not to say that we cannot voice our displeasure. Of course we have free speech and should be able to express it . but crashing a function such as this and making a show of it like this. I truly believes it reflects badly on the person.
That is a very personal opinion and I respect the opinion of anyone who is not in agreement . However, I believe that we as a society are losing our sense of respect and propriety. Protests serve a purpose, they get a dissenting message across and if your cause is just and it resonates with others then you will have what it takes to make people take notice. But Heckling only makes the heckler look bad. It is very sad to see……..
****I would also like to add that Madea was arrested with her boyfriend and quite a few others for dancing at the Jefferson Memorial during an Adam Kokesh demonstration. Video has been added below. ****
President Obama’s speech Thursday on national security wasn’t just a one-sided affair. The president paused multiple times when Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin shouted out, literally stopping Obama in his place and forcing him to respond. Benjamin was demanding answers for the drone strikes that killed four American citizens as well as the end to holding detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Benjamin is a well-known anti-war protester recognized around the world, and she joined us to talk about why she couldn’t remain silent during the president’s speech.
Mass Arrests At Jefferson Memorial For Public Displays Of Affection/Dancing Incl. Adam Kokesh (RT)
Published on May 28, 2011
A disgusting over-reach by federal goons at the Jefferson Memorial results in the mass arrests of innocent tourists, including a couple who were kissing. Adam Kokesh was also arrested for dancing.
24-year-old New York anarchist Jerry Koch is jailed for invoking his 5th Amendment rights after being recalled 4 years later to be questioned once again in a case where he initially testified that he knew nothing of what had transpired in the bicycle bombing being investigated.
Lois Lerner of the IRS is called to testify she invokes her 5th Amendment right and goes on to claim that she did nothing wrong or illegal. However, she is still free.
I suppose it was helpful that she defied Legislators and not a Judge , huh ?
24-year-old New York anarchist Jerry Koch gets jailed for up to 18 months for refusing to testify as a witness in the Times Square bicycle bombing case of 2008 at a federal grand jury hearing. RT’s Anastasia Churkina reports from the federal court house in the Big Apple.
Holder says drone strikes since 2009 have killed four U.S. citizens
By Tom Curry and Chuck Todd, NBC News
On the eve of a major address by President Barack Obama on his counterterrorism policy, the Obama administration revealed Wednesday that drone strikes since 2009 had killed four Americans overseas – one of whom, Anwar al-Aulaqi, was targeted in Yemen because he’d planned and was planning terrorist attacks on the United States – principally the plot to blow up an airliner over Detroit on Christmas Eve 2009.
Three others who were not “specifically targeted” were killed in circumstances the administration did not explain.
Holder said the U.S. government was “aware of three other U.S. citizens who have been killed in such U.S. counterterrorism operations over that same time period (since 2009): Samir Khan, ‘Abd al-Rahman Anwar al-Aulaqi, and Jude Kenan Mohammed. These individuals were not specifically targeted by the United States.”
Jude Kenan Mohammed was on the FBI’s Most Wanted List and the FBI notice said, “On July 22, 2009, a Federal Grand Jury in North Carolina indicted Jude Kenan Mohammad for conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and conspiracy to murder, kidnap, maim, and injure persons in a foreign country. Mohammad is at large and a federal warrant was issued by the United States District Court, Eastern District of North Carolina, Raleigh, North Carolina, for his arrest.”
IRS official to plead the Fifth before House Oversight Committee
By Peter Schroeder and Bernie Becker – 05/21/13 08:30 PM ET
Lois Lerner, the Internal Revenue Service official at the eye of the storm over the improper scrutiny of conservative groups, will refuse to answer questions from the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.
Through her attorney, Lerner stated her intention to invoke her Fifth Amendment rights after being called to testify.
“She has not committed any crime or made any misrepresentation, but under the circumstances she has no choice but to take this course,” her attorney, William W. Taylor III wrote in a letter to Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.).Her refusal to testify is the latest roadblock slowing lawmakers’ efforts to get to the bottom of the targeting of Tea Party groups.
Lerner, the head of the IRS’s exempt organizations division, was clearly going to be pressed by lawmakers about the honesty — or otherwise — of her previous responses before Congress on whether the IRS had targeted Tea Party groups.
She has already apologized for the imbroglio, but the Justice Department has launched a criminal probe into the matter. Lawmakers have repeatedly contended that IRS officials, including Lerner, misled Congress about its existence.
“We’re going to review with her what road she led us down previously,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), before news broke of Lerner’s refusal. “To be able to go back and review with her what she said previously versus what she might say on Wednesday, that’s going to make for an interesting exercise in contradictions.”
Both parties have criticized Lerner for being less than forthcoming with Congress. Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) has called for her resignation, after she did not disclose the targeting in response to a direct question from the lawmaker at a hearing — two days before she publicly apologized for it.
A spokesman for the Oversight Committee noted that Issa has issued a subpoena to compel Lerner to appear before his panel Wednesday, even if she refuses to answer questions.
“The committee has a Constitutional obligation to conduct oversight,” said spokesman Ali Ahmad. “Chairman Issa remains hopeful that she will ultimately decide to testify [Wednesday].”
But if Lerner stonewalls Congress, it would exacerbate the frustration lawmakers feel about being stymied by tax collectors.
Wednesday’s hearing will mark the third in less than a week in which lawmakers have probed current and former IRS officials, but members are still searching for answers to a few critical questions. How did the IRS come to adopt the practice of singling out Tea Party groups for added scrutiny? What was the motivation behind filtering out the groups: partisan politics or poor judgment?
Current and former IRS officials at the top of the agency have so far been unable or unwilling to answer those questions, and lawmakers on the Oversight Committee had hoped Lerner could finally shed light on the matter.
After all, she was the IRS official who first thrust the matter into the spotlight, apologizing at a legal conference a week and a half ago for the improper targeting. And the report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) on the practice found that she directed IRS employees to stop using explicit Tea Party criteria in identifying tax-exempt applications for further scrutiny, back in June 2011.
MS. Lerner May Have Waved Her 5th Amendment Right By Making Statement During Congressional Hearing
IRS Official Invokes 5th Amendment During Congressional Hearing On Scandal – Napolitano Cavuto
It’s no surprise. Michael Parenti calls America’s High Court its “autocratic branch.”
It’s notoriously pro-business. It’s longstanding. In Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railway (1886), it granted corporations legal personhood.
More recently, in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes et al (June 2011), it denied longstanding sexual discrimination class action redress. It overruled a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision doing so.
In AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion (April 2011), it did so two months earlier. It blocked class action redress claiming fraud. The company’s wireless subsidiary charged sales tax on cellphones it advertised as free. Two California courts rules for plaintiffs. The High Court overruled them.
In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled for money power over democratic governance. One dollar = one vote.
Corporations and PACs can spend all they want. Doing so more than ever lets them control US elections. Voters are effectively disenfranchised. They have no say whatever.
Numerous other rulings show America’s High Court is supremely pro-business. The Roberts Court is more so than previous ones. Even The New York Times noticed.
On May 4, it headlined “Corporations Find a Friend in the Supreme Court.” It rejected an anti-trust class action suit against Comcast. Subscribers sought to prove unfair competition and overcharges. Wrongdoing was dismissed 5 – 4. It didn’t surprise. It’s consistently pro-business. Doing so facilitates corporate empowerment, discriminatory practices, willful fraud, and products harming human health. Bowman v. Monsanto again showed where America’s High Court stands. Justice again was denied. Corporate interests alone matter. In 2007, Monsanto sued Vernon Bowman. He’s an Indiana farmer. At issue was alleged patent infringement.
He bought mixed soybean seeds. He did so from a grain elevator. He planted them a second time. He supplemented them with soybeans bought from the same source.
Monsanto’s licensing agreement forbids second plantings. It wants seeds sold used only once. It wants farmers to pay each time they plant.
Bowman claimed no patent infringement. It expired on what he first bought. He supplemented with commodity soybeans. They’re usually used for feed.
He said they naturally “self-replicate or sprout unless stored in a controlled manner.” In other words, he planted soybeans, not new seeds. He violated no law.
Justice Elena Kagan delivered the court opinion. She didn’t surprise. She and other justices spurn judicial fairness. They do so in defense of privilege. She rejected what she called “that blame-the-bean defense.”
Bowman had no chance. He was no match against Monsanto. He was ordered to pay nearly $85,000 in damages. He’s a small farmer. Doing so may bankrupt him. Longstanding agribusiness plans call for greater consolidation at the expense of small competitors.
Bowman lost at the district, appellate and High Court levels. They ruled one way. They claimed patent exhaustion doesn’t permit farmers to replant seeds and harvest them without patent holder’s permission.
Generic drug companies freely do it. The Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act permits it. Once patents expire, holders no longer have exclusive rights.
In 2014, the last of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready US patents will expire. Monsanto’s supposed to lose exclusivity. At issue is will or won’t it happen?
Expect Monsanto to press hard to keep it. Earlier it said it wants international regulatory Roundup Ready soybeans support until 2021. It’s unclear if other companies will be able to sell generic versions. Monsanto won’t make it easy to do so.
On May 13, Food Democracy Now (FDN) denounced the Supreme Court ruling. Executive director Dave Murphy accused Washington of complicity in permitting the “corporate takeover of (America’s) food supply.”
“Today,” he said, “the Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the corporate takeover of our food supply, in a huge win for Monsanto, and a major loss for America’s farmers and consumers.”
Monsanto has long engaged in an effort to subvert family farmers that do not use their genetically-engineered seeds, and the Court has now handed corporations even more control over what our families eat.
Currently, Food Democracy Now! is a co-plaintiff in a lawsuit in the District Court of Appeals, Organic Seed Associations et Al. v Monsanto to protect America’s farmers from unwanted contamination of their crops by Monsanto’s patented genetically-engineered plants.
Our nation’s family farmers grow our food on farms where cross-pollination between organic, non-GMO crops and Monsanto’s genetically-engineered patented crops is regular and naturally-occurring process.
The Court’s decision to give Monsanto the power to control the future harvest of America’s family farmers and our county’s food supply is deeply troubling, immoral and a very bad sign for the future of our nation’s food.
In March 2013, Obama signed the Monsanto Protection Act.It’s the Farmer Assurance Provision rider in HR 933: Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013. Monsanto lawyers wrote it.
It permits circumventing judicial decisions. If courts rule GMOs unsafe, Monsanto’s free to ignore them. So can the Secretary of Agriculture.
He’s free to ignore food safety. He can let hazardous GMOs poison America’s food supply. Obama’s complicit with giant corporate interests. He’s their man in Washington. He’s beholden to monied interests. They own him.
“The secret in propaganda is that when you demonize, you dehumanize,” says James Forsher, a film historian. “When you dehumanize, it allows you to kill your enemy and no longer feel guilty about it.”
Apparently illegal immigrants have been sufficiently dehumanized to force them into biometric tracking. There’s no way the government would use biometrics to track the superior law-abiding natives, right? More on this later.
Illegal immigration is a hot-button issue that genuinely affects many communities and the motivation to do something about it is understandable. However, anti-immigration supporters may be playing right into Big Brother’s hands by being tricked into supporting the hi-tech enslavement of themselves.
Some have referred to the sweeping immigration reform bill in Congress as a “Trojan Horse for Biometrics.” These systems are a clear indication that illegal immigration is being used to put the final touches on the full-spectrum surveillance grid in America.
And, shockingly, politicians are making the immigration reform bill more stringent instead of less, apparently fueled by anti-immigration zealots.
According to NBC News, the senate hopes to finalize a bill for a vote by the end of the week. The Senate Judiciary Committee has been debating many biometric identification mandates and have now approved a more stringent biometric “test system” for U.S. airports.
Carrie Dann of NBC News writes:
Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee approved an amendment sponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, a Republican considered to be a swing vote on the 18 member committee. That amendment, a less stringent version of a biometric proposal that failed last week, would require the Department of Homeland Security to establish a fingerprinting system at the 10 U.S. airports with the highest international traffic within two years. After six years, that system would have to be in place at the nation’s 30 biggest airports.
One of the key authors of the legislation, Marco Rubio (R-FL), said ”The amendment adopted today is a good start and I will continue to fight to make the tracking of entries and exits include biometrics.”
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) called it “a start” as well.
But Pfeiffer said that to reinforce the White House’s assertion that the IRS’ behavior is inexcusable.
“I can’t speak to the law here. The law is irrelevant,” Pfeiffer said on ABC‘s “This Week,” in a comment that drew ire from Republicans. “The activity was outrageous and inexcusable, and it was stopped and it needs to be fixed so we ensure it never happens again.”
“This Week” host George Stephanopoulos was struck by the “irrelevant” statement, and asked Pfeiffer if he “really believed” that was the case. Pfeiffer attempted to clarify.
AP, DOJ clash over seriousness of leak that prompted phone records seizure
Jonathan Ernst / Reuters
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder calls on a reporter during a news conference at the Justice Department on Tuesday.
By Michael Isikoff
National Investigative Correspondent, NBC News
Justice Department and Associated Press officials clashed Tuesday over leaked classified information that led the government to seize AP phone records, with Attorney General Eric Holder saying it “put the American people at risk” and the news organization’s chief executive insisting it delayed publishing its story until it was assured “national security concerns had passed.”
The day of back-and-forth public sallies came as new details emerged about negotiations between the AP and U.S. officials over the unauthorized release of classified information on a foiled bomb plot in Yemen, information that apparently triggered the investigation.
“This was a very, very serious leak,” Holder said at a news conference. “I’ve been a prosecutor since 1976 – and I have to say that this is among, if not the most serious, in the top two or three most serious leaks that I’ve ever seen. It put the American people at risk – and that is not hyperbole.”
Holder defended the secret subpoena for about two months of AP phone records on 20 separate telephone lines without prior notice as a necessary step, saying that trying to find the source of the leak “required very aggressive action.”
Holder’s comments and a letter from Deputy Attorney General James Cole defending the seizure of the AP records – without notifying the news organization until last week – drew a stern response from AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt. He blasted the action as “overbroad under the law,” saying that “more than 100 journalists work in the locations served by those telephones.”
“Rather than talk to us in advance, they seized these phone records in secret, saying that notifying us would compromise their investigation,” Pruitt said in a statement late Tuesday. “They offer no explanation of this, however.
DOJ’s secret subpoena of AP phone records broader than initially revealed
Information has emerged in the Justice Department seizure of Associated Press phone records as well as the news that reporter for Fox News is now a target of a leak investigation concerning North Korea. NBC’s Michael Isikoff reports.
By Michael Isikoff
National Investigative Correspondent, NBC News
The Justice Department’s secret subpoena for AP phone records included the seizure of records for five reporters’ cellphones and three home phones as well as two fax lines, a lawyer for the news organization tells NBC News.
David Schulz, the chief lawyer for the AP, said the subpoenas also covered the records for 21 phone lines in five AP office lines — including one for a dead phone line at office in Washington that had been shut down six years ago. The phone lines at four other offices – where 100 reporters worked — were also covered by the subpoenas, Schulz said.
Although AP had given general information about the subpoenas last week, it provided new details Monday about the number of cell and home phone records as it considers possible legal action against the Justice Department.
Jonathan Ernst / Reuters
