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.
Erin McCann is Associate Editor at Healthcare IT News. She covers physician practices, ambulatory care and social media in healthcare. Follow Erin on Twitter @EMcCannHITN
The Internal Revenue Service could now be facing a class action lawsuit over allegations that it improperly accessed and stole the health records of some 10 million Americans, including medical records of all California state judges.
According to a report by Courthousenews.com, an unnamed HIPAA-covered entity in California is suing the IRS, alleging that some 60 million medical records from 10 million patients were stolen by 15 IRS agents. The personal health information seized on March 11, 2011, included psychological counseling, gynecological counseling, sexual/drug treatment and other medical treatment data. “This is an action involving the corruption and abuse of power by several Internal Revenue Service agents,” wrote Robert E. Barnes, attorney representing the John Doe Company, in the official complaint. “No search warrant authorized the seizure of these records; no subpoena authorized the seizure of these records; none of the 10,000,000 Americans were under any kind of known criminal or civil investigation and their medical records had no relevance whatsoever to the IRS search. IT personnel at the scene, a HIPPA facility warning on the building and the IT portion of the searched premises, and the company executives each warned the IRS agents of these privileged records,” the complaint continued. According to the complaint, the IRS agents obtained a search warrant for financial data pertaining to a former employee of the John Doe Company, however, “it did not authorize any seizure of any healthcare or medical record of any persons, least of all third parties completely unrelated to the matter,” the complaint read. The IRS did not respond to multiple inquiries regarding the case.
A little over a week ago, on May 7, 2013 and in the midst of a worldwide economic depression, Columbia, South Carolina City Council members met to discuss the funding of a million dollar project even as the State government continued its regularly scheduled hysteria over budgets, spending, and deficits.
So what was the project so vital to the people of Columbia to be pushed through by a 4-2 vote of the council during the midst of such trying economic times? Was it regarding the road systems? Was it the dismal state of Columbia schools? Was it tax relief for residents? Was it economic development? Water? Power? Sewage? Waste disposal?
Actually, it was the purchase and installation of 800 new surveillance cameras all across the city of Columbia that prompted the Council to spend $1.22 million, much of which is scheduled to come from an “emergency reserve fund” that is actually part of next year’s budget. As The State reports, “That previous $1 million fund will be reduced to $250,000. A capital projects fund that was to be $1.7 million next year will be down by $200,000.”
Once again, Columbia City Council members have come to the decision that maintaining and expanding the police state should always be paramount to any concerns facing elected officials at any time. In other words – Surveillance at all costs! Survival is secondary.
Even as the city’s meal taxes will be used to fund the camera installation to the tune of $100,000, budget cuts will also take place regarding the amount of money spent to house inmates in the Richland County Jail. This simply means that, if you are arrested (which will likely happen in the New United Police States of America) for one of the innumerable mundane and victimless activities that can result in temporary (or indefinite) imprisonment, the conditions in which you are held are likely to be even more abominable than they currently are.
Another $100,000 infusion of cash will come from “eliminating the city’s planned reserves in the event that fuel or utility bills jump.”
Who cares if the city can’t pay its utility bills? After all, it’s only ordinary citizens that would suffer as a result. Besides, you can always raise their taxes yet again to meet the payment requirements.
Oh, and police will be receiving raises in January. All other City workers, however, will be forced to continue to do their jobs as normal, receive the same amount of pay, and constantly be told how “government workers” make six figure salaries and do nothing as a justification for new cuts in the budget.
Another interesting aspect is that the Columbia City Council has decided to contract out to Statewide Security Systems (SSS), the company that already provides most of the cameras being used by the City. It is no surprise, then, that SSS received the City contract despite being the more expensive of the two options.
Spying without a warrant in America is a crime, a violation of privacy rights protected by the U.S. Constitution. Yet, the government is asking technology companies to commit this crime or be fined for insubordination.
The New York Times is reporting that the Obama administration is “on the verge of backing a Federal Bureau of Investigation plan for a sweeping overhaul of surveillance laws that would make it easier to wiretap people.”
According to the New York Times:
The Obama administration, resolving years of internal debate, is on the verge of backing a Federal Bureau of Investigation plan for a sweeping overhaul of surveillance laws that would make it easier to wiretap people who communicate using the Internet rather than by traditional phone services, according to officials familiar with the deliberations.
The F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, has argued that the bureau’s ability to carry out court-approved eavesdropping on suspects is “going dark” as communications technology evolves, and since 2010 has pushed for a legal mandate requiring companies like Facebook and Google to build into their instant-messaging and other such systems a capacity to comply with wiretap orders. That proposal, however, bogged down amid concerns by other agencies, like the Commerce Department, about quashing Silicon Valley innovation.
While the F.B.I.’s original proposal would have required Internet communications services to each build in a wiretapping capacity, the revised one, which must now be reviewed by the White House, focuses on fining companies that do not comply with wiretap orders. The difference, officials say, means that start-ups with a small number of users would have fewer worries about wiretapping issues unless the companies became popular enough to come to the Justice Department’s attention.
Americans troubled more by governmental abuse than terrorism
Published time: April 29, 2013 17:55
Edited time: April 30, 2013 17:12
RT
Police and private security personel monitor security cameras at the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative on April 23, 2013 in New York City. (AFP Photo / John Moore)
Even after a pair of bombings in Boston two weeks ago injured hundreds, more Americans say they are unwilling to sacrifice constitutional liberties for security than those who are.
A handful of polls conducted in the days after the Boston Marathon bombings show that US citizens are responding much differently than in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that killed roughly 3,000 people. Not only are Americans more opposed now to giving up personal freedoms for the sake of security than they were after 9/11, but other statistics show that distrust against the federal government continues to climb.
Just one day after the April 15 Boston Marathon bombing, pollsters with Fox News asked a sample of Americans, “Would you be willing to give up some of your personal freedom in order to reduce thethreat of terrorism?” Forty-three percent of the respondents said they would, while 45 percent said no. Comparatively, 71 percent of Americans asked a similar question in October 2001 said they’d be willing to give up personal freedoms, while only 20 percent opposed at the time.
In the dozen years since 9/11, frequent polling conducted by Fox has suggests that the majority of Americans have all the while said they’d give up their freedoms for the sake of security. Only with the latest inquiry though are those answers reversed: the last time a majority of Americans opposed giving up privacy for security was May 2001.
Ok, I know there are many people out there thinking ,this is way cool. Yes technology is very cool. I for one think they should be
1) working just as hard at finding out exactly what is killing the bees we already have and nature provides very efficiently on it’s own without help from robotics.
2) Stop the corporation from making the chemicals that are hurting the bees in the first place. Putting eco responsibility and the health of the planet before profits.
3) Consider that if the bees are in danger then the rest of the pollinators may be as well. Coming to the conclusion that the link in the eco cycle will be broken and the ramifications could be devastating, if left unchecked.
4) I would like to point out something that should be very obvious,but would not occur to many people. While this new technology is cool. What is to stop the bad guys from getting their hands on said technology and using it to their benefit?
It is obvious from the 2nd video that they do indeed have military and law enforcement applications. It would be naive to believe that their use will only be for lawful and beneficial purposes.
Just imagine the Boston Bombing with this kind of technological capability behind it?
Yes I am sure you see where I am going with this……
The demonstration of the first controlled flight of an insect-sized robot is the culmination of more than a decade’s work, led by researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard. Half the size of a paperclip, weighing less than a tenth of a gram, the robot was inspired by the biology of a fly, with submillimeter-scale anatomy and two wafer-thin wings that flap almost invisibly, 120 times per second. To read more about this work, visit: http://hvrd.me/150Pq0y.
This is an update to the original post on April 17.
No, this is not a tabloid – it’s real. According to the latest video, which has now been posted below, robotic insects have made their first controlled flight. According to the creators of Robobee:
The demonstration of the first controlled flight of an insect-sized robot is the culmination of more than a decade’s work . . . Half the size of a paperclip, weighing less than a tenth of a gram, the robot was inspired by the biology of a fly, with submillimeter-scale anatomy and two wafer-thin wings that flap almost invisibly, 120 times per second.
In addition to the recent suggestion from insecticide producers that we should “plant more flowers” to aid the declining bee population, Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences has been working with staff from the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Northeastern University’s Department of Biology to develop robotic bees. These insectoid automatons would be capable of a multitude of tasks.
Autonomous pollination, search and rescue, hazardous exploration, military surveillance, climate mapping, and traffic monitoring – to name a few.
Harvard claims their “Micro Air Vehicles Project” was inspired by the biology of a bee and the insect’s hive behaviors. While the researchers focused on the development of individual autonomous robots, they also plan to study coordinating large numbers of the robots to accomplish tasks faster and more efficiently.
The robots are created through an incredible micro-engineering process specifically designed for mass production. Each “Bee” is designed with its own electronic nervous system and power source, and able to target tasks with a microscopic Ultra Violet targeting sensor.
These micro-engineering advances are increasingly similar to the military’s development of miniature drones. Shared knowledge and research in these technologies is resulting in a massive increase of processing power and flight time, as well as the potential for fully autonomous drone swarms.
Air Force Bugbots Nano Drone video gives a peak inside what nano-drone technology the Federal Government is currently implementing within the united states more than a scary thought or sci-fi movie, they have arrived.
The deadly, insect-sized drones of the future – Unobtrusive, Invasive, and Lethal are here as depicted in this old video
The Air Force is reportedly developing winged drones that can sneak up on a suspected enemy as stealthily as a mosquito
A law signed by President Barack Obama in February 2012 directs the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to throw American airspace wide open to drones by September 30, 2015.
Nano sized Drones Combined With DNA Hacking Could Create A Very Scary Future for the United States in light of a law president Obama signed last year implementing a fleet of at least 30,000 spy drones to spy on small town USA no later than 2015 to spy on Americans.
Unfortunately this is a true story and as long as we continue to let politicians like President Barack Obama and other democrats pick apart and fundamentally change our constitution instead of protecting it, we move closer to an extreme communist state in our country.
In case you didn’t know it – and you probably didn’t – Congress, with little fanfare, passed an FAA re-authorization bill that President Obama signed into law that will put 30,000 flying drones spying on Americans across U.S. cities by government.
People are already nervous about the prospect of being watched by law enforcement (and possibly the military or DHS), but our leaders employ these tools nevertheless and “we the people” are letting them.
Even the liberal news huffington post has a video news story about this although they try to legitimize the reasons for needing this to save lives. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09…
The president has ordered 30,000 spy drones to be used within the United States to spy on Americans to be implemented by 2015
We are already seeing evidence of spy drones being used within the United States and NOT for border patrol
Your government is watching and tracking your decisions – even saying “No” to vaccines.
The Centers for Disease Control has been quietly rolling out a nationwide program called the Immunization Information Systems (IIS), registering your vaccine information into a database. [1] This effort has been run in parallel with state vaccine registry implementations.
What is the intention of such programs?
My colleague Leslie Manookian, writer and director of the movie The Greater Good, wrote in a recent article, the “CDC has openly stated that vaccine registries are a tool to identify areas of ‘undervaccination’ so that they can be ‘addressed’ and brought into ‘compliance.’” [2]
I would also add to Leslie’s statement that since the government purchases a large bulk of the vaccines (for example, the Vaccines for Children program), it is in their financial interest to make sure vaccines are consumed regularly.
If you exempt your child from being vaccinated, your refusal is also being tracked and put into the database. If you want to know why this is a big deal, read on.
But first, what does tracking every vaccine you or your children have ever been injected with look like?
Big Plans for You
I want to make this very real for you.
The government collects information on who vaccinates their children and who does not. They know how many children have had their vaccines. They also know how many children have opted out of being vaccinated. They have the data.
The government has big plans and the most outrageous part about this entire scheme is you don’t have a choice – your data is entered. In order to accomplish this task we have to answer 3 basic questions.
1. What data is being tracked?
2. Who has access to the tracked data?
3. What will be done with this data?
Let’s start with the first question of what is being tracked.
Question #1: What Data is Being Tracked?
You’ll be surprised at how much data is being tracked. Some of the data is required while other data sets are optional. Rest assured, what is optional today can become required in short order.
According to the Immunization Information System Functional Standards, 2013 – 2017, the following information will be in their databases: [3]
REQUIRED: Patient name: first, middle, last
Optional: Patient alias name: first, middle, last
Optional: Patient address, phone number
Optional: Birthing facility
Optional: Patient Social Security number (SSN)
REQUIRED: Patient birth date
REQUIRED: Patient sex
REQUIRED: Patient race
REQUIRED: Patient ethnicity
Optional: Patient Primary language
REQUIRED: Patient birth order
Optional: Patient birth registration number
REQUIRED: Patient birth State/country
Optional: Patient Medicaid number Optional
REQUIRED: Mother’s name: First, middle, last, maiden
Optional: Mother’s SSN
Optional: Father’s name: first, middle, last
Optional: Father’s SSN
REQUIRED: Vaccine Type
REQUIRED: Vaccine Manufacturer
Optional: Vaccine dose number
Optional: Vaccine expiration date
Optional: Vaccine injection site
REQUIRED: Vaccination date
REQUIRED: Vaccine lot number
Optional: Vaccine provider
Do you trust anyone with your personal information? This leads us to the next question …
Here we have evidence of the ruthless and depraved deeds of a government driven by greed and power. The psychological process used to turn the citizens of a country against fellow countrymen/women. To demonize and criminalize innocents for their own ends. The rationalization behind the process is twofold.
First it is an efficient and effective way to eliminate a group of people that pose a threat to your ultimate plans of control . By ensuring that the citizenry at large are indoctrinated to believe that these Falun Gong practitioners posed a threat to the nation and it’s people. Labeling them as extremists, suicidal , dangerous and deranged. Thereby enlisting the uninformed citizenry to participate in the persecution and ultimately the execution of a people who meant harm to no one, save those who could not afford independent thought……The Government.
Top Officials Implicated in Organ Harvesting in China
Police chief’s research exemplifies regime’s guilt
(Clockwise)Bo Xilai, Jiang Zemin, Wang Lijun. (Feng Li/Getty Images)
Before he kicked off the biggest political storm in recent Chinese communist history last February after attempting to defect at a U.S. Consulate in southwestern China, police chief Wang Lijun supervised the cutting of thousands of organs from the bodies of prisoners of conscience—while they were still alive.
Wang was merely a mid-ranking officer in a dark conspiracy that reached to the top of the Chinese Communist Party.
In Jinzhou City in Liaoning Province in northeastern China, Wang Lijun ran a research laboratory in the same building as the security bureau he headed. His research focused on live, human organ extraction and transplantation.
He was working under the watch of Bo Xilai, the recently disgraced official who was head of Liaoning Province when Wang began his research.
The facts about Wang were revealed in 2006 when, three years after becoming director of the public security bureau, he was given an award—but not one for fighting crime. Wang’s team had done pioneering research on how best to transplant organs taken from prisoners—who were possibly still alive when their organs were removed—and surgeons acting at his direction had honed new techniques over “thousands” of on-site trials.
“As we all know, the so-called ‘on the scene research’ is the result of several thousand intensive on-site transplants,” he said in his acceptance speech for the award.
He talked up his research: “For a veteran policeman, to see someone being executed and to see this person’s organs being transplanted to several other persons’ bodies, it was profoundly stirring.”
Secondly, this process being used to indoctrinate the masses to view those who are different as evil and dangerous. Thereby providing not only a successful cover for the governments evil purposes but acceptance even encouragement to punish these people. For the greater good of course.
A Regime Makes War Against the Peaceful Falun Gong Practice
The Chinese Communist Party began its campaign to crush Falun Gong with an avalanche of propaganda depicting people who often meditate in parks as suicidal revolutionaries bent on destroying China.
Few Chinese believed the narrative, despite it being repeated hundreds of times. Up to 400 articles were published by each of the major newspapers within the first 30 days of the campaign.
Falun Gong was well-established, with over 28,000 practice sites across China. It was comfortably familiar to many, and public sympathy was with the group.
Then-Party chief Jiang Zemin began efforts to suppress Falun Gong in 1996, but the regime’s efforts met with sit-ins and peaceful acts of civil disobedience that Chinese people hadn’t seen since the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Jiang, who rose to power through supporting the crackdown on the student democracy movement, was both jealous and threatened by the fact that Falun Gong had attracted more adherents than the CCP had members. There were roughly 60 million Party members and up to 100 million Falun Gong practitioners.
He also wanted to wipe out the resurgence of Chinese traditional belief that Falun Gong represented, and in the persecution—which would demand that everyone in China take sides—he saw an opportunity to solidify his power.
As he said in a letter that made the case for persecution, he could not tolerate that Falun Gong adherents believed in something beyond the materialism and atheism of Chinese communism.
For three years, the security forces had harassed Falun Gong practitioners. Following the publication in the city of Tianjin, just down the road from Beijing, of an article attacking the practice, adherents gathered asking the article be withdrawn. Police arrested 45 of them, and in response to pleas for their release, told the practitioners to ask Beijing.
Ten thousand Falun Gong adherents gathered at the appeals office in Beijing on April 25, 1999. It was a crowd so large police arranged them on the sidewalks around Zhongnanhai, the communist leadership compound.
That night Jiang wrote to members of the Politburo Standing Committee that “behind the scenes” Falun Gong masterminds were making a move against the regime. He called it “the most serious incident since the political turbulence in 1989.”
Practitioners had merely gone to appeal against mistreatment, asking the central government to uphold its own laws.
Jiang wrote that Falun Gong was competing with the Party for the masses. “We must understand this issue as a political one, as one that involves the very existence of the Party and the nation. We must thoroughly investigate it and show zero tolerance!”
One would ponder the use of this process in another country, say one that is not communist or at least not yet. Comparing the process of the criminalization of Falun Gong practitioners to oh let’s say Americans who question the status quo. People who question government and their motives. People who have questioned the loss of liberties, the more and more prevalent terror attacks on American soil. Those who so distrust the motives of the government that they question everything including the incessant need to nullify the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Unlawful wars, lies to the American People, subterfuge at every turn. All to undermine and demoralize the people. Labeled as conspiracy nuts, non conformists, anti-government radicals, Christians, Conservatives, Struggling Middle Class, Constitutionalists, Libertarians, veterans and gun owners have all been lumped together to be labeled in this manner. Listed as possible terrorists we are placed on watch lists and no fly lists by the Department of Homeland Security.
Terrorist watch listDHS’s new terrorist database rankles privacy groups
Published 15 August 2011
A new DHS plan to create its own version of the FBI’s terrorist watch list that is exempt from the Privacy Act has privacy groups concerned; under the proposed plan, DHS would create the Watchlist Service which would bring the FBI’s suspected terrorist list in-house and expand on it
DHS plans a Privacy Act-exempt watch list // Source: dariknews.bg
A new DHS plan to create its own version of the FBI’s terrorist watch list that is exempt from the Privacy Act has privacy groups concerned.
Under the proposed plan, DHS would create the Watchlist Service which would bring the FBI’s suspected terrorist list in-house and expand on it. The list would contain names, dates of birth, biometric data, photos, passport information, driver’s licenses, and other critical information. The goal, according to DHS’s 6 July proposal, is to increase employee access to the FBI and Justice Department’s list “in order to automate and simplify the current method for transmitting” the data to DHS component agencies including the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).”
TSA currently uses the watch list for its Secure Flight program, which is aimed at preventing suspected terrorists from boarding planes by allowing the agency to instantly check ticketed airline passengers’ names against the database.
Testifying before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in July, David Heyman, the assistant Homeland Security secretary for policy, explained that DHS had identified screening gaps in its review of the suspected terrorist database.
To address these security gaps, DHS “has transitioned the Secure Flight program to use all terrorist watch list records containing a full name and a full date of birth and designates matches to those records as selectees subject to enhanced physical screening prior to boarding a flight,” he said.
What concerns privacy advocates though, is a particular provision in DHS’s proposal that states the department will “exempt portions of the system of records from one or more provisions of the Privacy Act because of criminal, civil and administrative enforcement requirements.”
The proposed provision has led privacy advocates like the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the American Library Association’s Washington office, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, and the Center for Financial Privacy and Human Rights to issue a joint letter to DHS demanding that the department reconsider its proposal.
The groups’ main concern is that these exemptions would remove critical safe guards put in place to protect the rights of citizens. Their letter stated, “secretive government lists without any meaningful safeguards present a very real risk of ‘mission creep,’ in which a system is pressed into unintended or unauthorized uses. Under this proposal, the agency would have the right to maintain and rely upon information it does not know to be accurate, relevant, timely, or complete without recourse — the right to subject citizens to arbitrary decisions.”
Anyone who criticizes, anyone who complains of the abuse of power that is taking place is labeled. The indoctrinated and conditioned masses follow suit and play their roles to the T- baggers, Conspiracy nuts, wingnuts, racists,zombies, lymbic brained, tin foil brigade……so many more epitaphs used to describe those who question and do not follow quietly the disturbing path that is being set before this nation. You say Pffffft that can’t happen here this is not China, this is not Russia, this is not the Middle East. We have freedom , we have rights, we are American!!
Ann Coulter: Occupy Wall Street Protesters Are Getting in Touch With Demonic Side
MSNBC on NYPD Police Brutality during Occupy Wall Street Lawrence O’donnell with “The Last Word”
Severe police action as thousands of Occupy protesters fill Times Square
Look around folks and take a real hard look at what is happening around you. How many of you are questioning the rationalization behind the events that are taking place and how they are being utilized to fulfill an agenda? What agenda you may ask? Well let’s take a look shall we? The constant and common denominator between all these events and the agenda that they will ultimately fulfill can all be pinpointed to one event in the history of this Nation. On September 11th 2001 there became evident to anyone who wanted to see a deadly agenda that marked the decent of this once great nation. The mentality that has gone on to become the battle cry of not only the administration but of State and local governments as well. “Never let a good crisis go to waste”, a statement made infamous by Rahm Emmanuel and parroted many times over by different figures within the government apparatus.
Dianne Feinstein Not letting a good crisis go to waste.
Obama Gun Control Press Conference afte Sandy Hook Shooting
The WTC attack was used not only to usher in an illegal war ( which we now have proof of having been planned years before they were able to implement it) , it was the beginning of the end of the Constitution and the American way of life. How was it the end? Very simply it helped to usher in the implementation of the Patriot Act.
Sept. 20, 2001 – Bush Declares War on Terror
Bill Cooper predicts 9/11 attack on the twin towers
Judge Andrew Napolitano Natural Rights and The Patriot Act part 1 of 3
So many, so very many called for the government to do something and protect us from the big bad terrorists and they complied. The Patriot act was enacted and those cowards who could only think of being protected not caring how, convinced themselves that more government was better and that the government knew best. Did they once stop to think what they were asking for ? Did they stop to think what the end result would be? Did they once stop and remember all this government and others like it had done when afforded unchecked power? The answer to all these questions , unfortunately is NO…….All they could think about was their fear and their need to be protected at all costs. Their response to those who did think and remember was quite amusing and devastatingly sad…….”If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear”. This has become the cry of the conformists and apologists. They have opted for the head in the sand approach. If the government says it is for my own good then it must be true. Anyone denying me and mine the safety being offered by the government is wrong and therefore dangerous. The demoralization and alienation campaign had begun. George Bush gave a speech and in it I can remember the use of the word terrorist over and over again , culminating in this one statement that said it all and frankly labeled everyone in one way or another……”If you are not with us , the you are with the terrorists!” That is how we as Americans have lived our lives everyday since whether we are aware of it or not. We are blackmailed and threatened on a daily basis. Oh not in a confrontational in your face kind of way , no of course not . It is more subtle than that . A quite sophisticated mind game that is molding the majority of Americans into the hive mind citizens they strive for . The useful idiots that Yuri Bezmenov the Ex- KGB Officer that explains the steps necessary to undermine a nation.
Ideological Subversion of Western Society
Soviet Subversion of the Free World Press, 1984 – Complete
For those of you who are beginning to have doubts and are opening your eyes to the possibility of something not being quite right I say this……The devil is in the details and in order for you to see the truth you must look at the whole picture not just the frame that is before you at any one given moment in time. You must pull back and look at it as a whole. See History as it has unfolded before your eyes not in the way they have chosen to present it to you. Understand that the orchestration of this play has been a very long time in the making ,but who is behind it is not as important as where we will be as a nation if they accomplish what they have set out to do.
US-Canada Claim Iran-Al Qaeda Ties Despite US Funding Al Qaeda in Iran for Years
“To many, it came as a surprise that the RCMP is alleging that two terror suspects arrested in Canada on Monday were supported by al-Qaeda operatives in Iran.
The Sunni-based al-Qaeda and Shia Iran belong to different branches of Islam that have been at odds historically. But in recent years U.S. officials have formally alleged that Iran has allowed al-Qaeda members to operate out of its territory.”
Both at face value and upon deeper examination, this assertion is utterly absurd, divorced from reality, and indicative of the absolute contempt within which the Western establishment holds the global public. In reality, the West, the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel in particular, have propped up and perpetuated Al Qaeda for the very purpose of either undermining or overthrowing the governments of Iran, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Algeria, Libya, Russia, Malaysia, Indonesia, and beyond. Regarding Iran in particular, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his 2007 New Yorker piece titled, “The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?” would state:
To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.
To conform and go with the flow at this point in time is tantamount to suicide as a nation. You must open your eyes and view the events as a puzzle that must be deciphered. It’s true intent exposed so that you may see how it has developed and what it’s ultimate intent entails. To do so requires discipline, time and courage. There are many who would sooner shoot you down and label you crazy than allow you to go down this road. Which you choose is entirely up to you , however, if you are reading this and you choose to do nothing, to say nothing then you are as responsible as the criminals perpetrating these crimes against our people. Your silence and lack of resolve making you complicit in the crimes that will be heaped upon the American people when the time to unveil the final agenda arrives. Truly look at what is presented and try to understand where it is going and what the ultimate result could be. That is all anyone can ask of you That is all any of us would require. We need you to wake up and understand what is being done…….
Former diplomat wistleblower talks about US government secrets and corruption
FBI Fake Terror Plot History: Judge Napolitano
Patriot Act NDAA, Indefinite Detention Of American Citizens, Presidential Kill List, Fusion Centers, CISPA, SOPA, PIPA, Gun Control, Executive Orders, Unamanned Drones, TSA, Lockdowns, Door to Door Illegal Searches, Warantless Surveillance, Personal Data Sharing, Militarization of local police, Legitimization of Police Brutality, Veterans – Christians-Constitutionalists-Libertarians-Gun Owners- Activists being labeled as potential terrorists and the list goes on and on
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The bill still needs to pass the Senate and get Obama’s signature before becoming law
By Grant Gross, IDG News Service
April 18, 2013 02:30 PM ET
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IDG News Service – The U.S. House of Representatives has voted to approve a controversial cyberthreat information-sharing bill, despite opposition from the White House and several privacy and digital rights groups.
The House on Thursday voted 288-127 to approve the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), a bill that would allow U.S. intelligence agencies to share cyberthreat information with private companies. It would also shield private companies that voluntarily share cyberthreat information with each other and with government agencies from privacy lawsuits brought by customers.
The bill would still need to be passed by the U.S. Senate before heading to President Barack Obama for his signature. The Senate declined to act on another version of CISPA during the last session of Congress, and earlier this week, Obama’s advisors threatened a veto, although that was before the House approved a handful of amendments intended to address privacy concerns.
CISPA would allow private companies to share a broad range of customer data with each other and with government agencies, privacy groups have complained.
Supporters, however, argued the legislation is needed to encourage better information sharing about active cyberattacks, resulting in better defense of U.S. networks. Federal law now prohibits intelligence agencies from sharing classified cyberthreat information with private companies.
The bill will help protect the U.S. against cyberattacks from China, Iran and other countries, supporters said. Cyberespionage has cost the U.S. tens of thousands of jobs, as foreign companies steal the blueprints of U.S. products, said Representative Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican and primary sponsor of CISPA.
“If you want to take a shot across China’s bow, this is the answer,” he said to applause on the House floor.
The bill correctly balances privacy concerns with the need for security, added Representative Dan Maffei, a New York Democrat. Rogue nations and “even independent groups like WikiLeaks” are taking aggressive measures to attack the U.S. power grid, air-traffic control systems and customer financial data, he said.
“Every day, international agents, terrorists and criminal organizations attack the public and private networks of the United States,” he said. “While I do always have some concern that the U.S. government may access our private information in the cyber sphere, I am more concerned that the Chinese government will access our private information.”
The House on Thursday voted for a handful of amendments to the bill intended to improve privacy protections in the bill. Lawmakers approved an amendment designating the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Department of Justice as the primary repositories of cybertheat information shared by private companies, addressing a concern by several privacy groups that CISPA would give the U.S. National Security Agency unfettered access to customer data.
By Michelle Richardson, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 10:05am
We’ve written extensively about CISPA over the last year, but since the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is set to mark the bill up next week, and the full House to vote on it the week after that, we’re posting in more depth about its shortcomings. Information sharing isn’t offensive per se; it’s really a question of what can be shared, with whom, and what corporations and government agencies can do with it. First up:
What information does CISPA allow companies to share?
The short answer: any information that “pertains” to cybersecurity, broadly defined to include vulnerabilities, threat information, efforts to degrade systems, attempts at unauthorized access, and more. You can see the full list on page 20 of the bill. You’ll see that it’s not tied to the criminal definition of hacking but instead forges new ground.
The bill sponsors will tell you that CISPA is only about the “ones and zeroes,” but it certainly isn’t drafted that way. There’s nothing limiting CISPA in that manner and personally identifiable information (PII) could be shared right along with some inconsequential code that doesn’t impact privacy at all. So, if your communications or records are somehow caught up in a cybersecurity data dump, they might possibly include information that identifies the real-world you, even if that information is not necessary to combat a cyber threat. Under CISPA, you’ll just have to trust that the corporations holding your very personal information do what’s best. Good luck with that.
The Rancho Mirage City Council could pass an ordinance that would be by far the most restrictive of any in the United States, even banning the use of recreational drones in residential areas.
While the vote on the proposal was delayed, according to My Desert, it is still quite noteworthy due to its highly unusual focus on the use of drones over residential neighborhoods.
“I didn’t find any ordinance such as this adopted by any municipality in the United States,” said the plan’s author, City Attorney Steve Quintanilla.
However, as My Desert points out, there was also a bill introduced in the Texas legislature which seeks to ban both possession and use of images of private property captured by drones without the permission of the property owners.
The proposed ordinance in Rancho Mirage would entirely ban the flying of “unmanned aircraft that can fly under the control of a remote pilot or by a geographic positions system (GPS) guided autopilot mechanism” up to 400 feet above residential zones.
Drones flying higher than 400 feet fall under the jurisdiction of the Federal Aviation Administration.
While cameras are currently not covered in the proposed ban, they could be added, “But some of the cameras can be pretty small and hard to see, so that could be difficult to enforce,” according to Quintanilla.
Jonathan Ernst / Reuters
DHS plans a Privacy Act-exempt watch list // Source: dariknews.bg
