Category: Rule Of Law


20 Examples Of How America Is Rapidly Going Down The Toilet

Toilet - Photo by Tenzinx3Deep corruption is eating away at every level of American society like cancer.  We can see this in our families, we can see this in our businesses, and we can especially see this in our government.  We have the highest rate of divorce in the world, we have the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the world, we have the highest rate of obesity in world, and nobody has higher rates of cancer, heart disease and diabetes than we do.  The suicide rate is soaring and our economy is falling apart.  Meanwhile, our politicians seem absolutely clueless and we have piled up the biggest mountain of debt that the world has ever seen.  Has America ever been in such bad shape before?  The following are 20 examples of how America is rapidly going down the toilet…

#1 Why do so many members of the media have family members that work for the White House?  Is this one of the reasons why the mainstream media is so soft on Obama?  Just check out the following list which was recently compiled by the Washington Post

The list of prominent news people with close White House relations includes ABC News President Ben Sherwood, who is the brother of Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, a top national-security adviser to President Obama. His counterpart at CBS, news division president David Rhodes, is the brother of Benjamin Rhodes, a key foreign-policy specialist. CNN’s deputy Washington bureau chief, Virginia Moseley, is married to Tom Nides, who until earlier this year was deputy secretary of state under Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Further, White House press secretary Jay Carney’s wife is Claire Shipman, a veteran reporter for ABC. And NPR’s White House correspondent, Ari Shapiro, is married to a lawyer, Michael Gottlieb, who joined the White House counsel’s office in April.

#2 Why are IRS agents training with AR-15 rifles?  Exactly who do those IRS agents expect to be using those weapons against?

#3 The city of Detroit is on the verge of declaring the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, but a 41-year-old city worker is about to starting drawing a $96,000 annual pension

Matt Schenk isn’t your average retiree. He’s 41, works full-time and collects $194,000 a year at the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department.

But as soon as next month, he’ll start collecting an estimated $96,000 annual pension, courtesy of an early retirement incentive offered to Wayne County appointees.  It had no age restriction.

#4 The number of sexual assaults in the U.S. military is up 35 percent since 2010.

#5 The suicide rate for Americans between the ages of 35 and 64 rose by close to 30 percent between 1999 and 2010.  The number of Americans that are killed by suicide now exceeds the number of Americans that die as a result of car accidents.

#6 The United States has the highest rate of obesity on the planet by far.  The U.S. also has the highest rate of cancer, the highest rate of heart disease and the highest rate of diabetes.

#7 An illegal immigrant brutally raped and killed a 9-month-old girl in Richland, Washington recently, but you won’t hear anything about it from the big mainstream news networks because it might hurt the immigration bill being pushed through Congress.

#8 Even though the United States has been able to fully secure the border between North Korea and South Korea for the past 60 years, U.S. Senator Check Schumer says that it would take “years and years and years” to secure the border between the United States and Mexico.

#9 All over America illegal immigrants are turning pleasant communities into crime-infested cesspools.  The following is what Doug Hoagland says is going on down in California…

 

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Honor  amongst   Thieves!!

Perhaps  we  should   hold   Congress accountable  for  treason having  violated  the  Constitution that  they  swore to  protect?  

Or  perhaps for putting  self interest  and  politics,  not to  mention  profits  before  the  will of the  people  who  they  have  sworn to  represent? 

How is  it  that everything  that has  to  do  with  covering  up  the crimes of the  government  are  a matter  of   National  Security? 

When exactly will it  be in  the  interest of   the  People’s  security? 

It would be  nice  to  see the  people protected  with the  same   fervor  as  the   cover up of their  crimes?

~Desert Rose~

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BreakingNewsTodayy BreakingNewsTodayy

Published on Jun 11, 2013

Members of Congress seem to be playing a game of one-upsmanship in their increasingly hawkish reactions to the NSA leaks. Democrat Dianne Feinstein said whistleblower Edward Snowden committed an act of treason, and now Republican Peter King has decided that any journalists who reported the information leaked by Snowden should face criminal prosecution.

Anderson Cooper asked King if he thinks journalists revealing this information should be targeted. “Do you believe they should be punished as well? King said that they unequivocally should, and though he didn’t mention any specific names, he was mainly referring to Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who printed exclusive after exclusive with more information on government surveillance programs.

Here is King’s comment in its entirety: “Actually, if they–if they knew that this was classified information–I think action should be taken, especially on something of this magnitude. I know that the whole issue of leaks has been gone into over the last month. I think something on this magnitude, there is an obligation, both moral but also legal, I believe, against a reporter disclosing something which would so severely compromise national security. As a practical matter, I–I guess it happened in the past several years, a number of reporters who have been prosecuted under us, so the answer is yes to your question.”

On Monday, King declared Snowden to be not just a threat to national security, but “dangerous to the country” and a “defector.”

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CNN’s John King Blasts GOP Rep. Peter King For Saying Reporters Should Be Charged [6-12-2013]

Rashad Evans

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Time to Expose Them: Whistleblowers Can Take Down the System

susanne_posel_news_ JBstuff 022Susanne Posel
Occupy Corporatism
June 13, 2013

 

 

 

 

 

General Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency (NSA) is expected to appear before the Senate Appropriations Committee (SAC) to answer for PRISM.

Senator Ron Wyden wants hearings to be scheduled for Alexander and others to answer Congressional questions to explain once and for all he details about the government’s surveillance program.

House Speaker John Boehner and Senator Dianne Feinstein are adamant that Edward Snowden, NSA whistleblower, is a traitor and should be dealt with accordingly.

Closed meetings between federal intelligence heads and Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) officials have taken place to discuss how to deal with the NSA leak.

With PRISM becoming a household name, those surveillance organizations working for the Obama administration are concerned about those programs that have yet to be exposed.

Chuck Hagel, Defense Secretary, has demanded that the Department of Defense (DoD) make sure that private sector contractors are clear that whistleblowing will not be tolerated.

The need for relationships of trust between those corporations and the federal government is necessary for the surveillance programs to continue.

In essence, it is the whistleblower that could take down the system.

Mainstream media (MSM) would have the populace believe that government surveillance is perfectly fine – as long as the citizens are told that they are being watched.

Under the PRISM program data collecting on citizens includes knowing:

• Websites visited
• IP addresses
• Type of device used
• Search terms used
• Passwords and logins

Alan F Westin, professor of public law and government at Columbia University, explained in an op-ed piece that: “American society is in the midst of a great debate over privacy, precipitated by the development and use of new surveillance devices and processes by both public and private authorities.”

Westin points out that the concern of the masses is that “these new means of augmented surveillance over individuals and groups now spans the ideological spectrum from extreme left to hard right. Worried protests against ‘Big Brother’ tendencies have become a staple item in the press, government proceedings, law reviews, and social science journals.”

The Signals Intelligence Service (SIS), begun after World War II and the pre-cursor for the NSA, dealt with telegraph corporations, much as the NSA collaborates with internet service providers (ISPs).

Under Project Shamrock , agents would be given telegraph intelligence under the cover of night through literal back-door deals.

For 30 years, Project Shamrock provided intelligence and was only exposed by Senator Frank Church during a Congressional investigation.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was passed to prevent another Project Shamrock from being implemented in secret by intelligence agencies within the federal government.

Since the George W. Bush Administration FISA has been twisted and broken with the advent of warrantless wiretapping. The Obama administration has taken FISA a step further and sought to manipulate it for their purposes to make illegal activity legal.

In a propaganda piece meant to discredit Snowden, USA Today and Verizon Wireless released a short broadcast that exposes the whistleblower.

• Snowden being in Hong Kong is fortuitous because of it’s connections to major cities across the globe through airports.
• Lindsey Mills, Snowden’s girlfriend is missing.

The Department of Justice (DoJ) is preparing a criminal case against Snowden, at the behest of the Obama administration. The FBI has been sent to interview Snowden’s friends and family.

Snowden has released documents that show the National Security Agency (NSA) has been involved in hacking attacks on officials in China, the Hong Kong University and students.

Snowden says that the NSA is conducting more than 61,000 cyber attacks globally.

He said: “We hack network backbones — like huge internet routers, basically — that give us access to the communications of hundreds of thousands of computers without having to hack every single one. Last week the American government happily operated in the shadows with no respect for the consent of the governed, but no longer.”

Snowden explained: “People who think I made a mistake in picking Hong Kong as a location misunderstand my intentions. I am not here to hide from justice; I am here to reveal criminality… My intention is to ask the courts and people of Hong Kong to decide my fate.”

Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, former chief security officer for Hong Kong said that it was in Snowden’s “best interest to leave Hong Kong.”

House Representative Peter King adamantly declared that Snowden is “either a defector or traitor. “I think what he’s done has done incredible damage to our country. It’s going to put American lives at risk.”

King said that journalists should be punished for doing their job of exposing corruption “if they willingly knew that this was classified information, I think actions should be taken, especially something of this magnitude. I think something on this magnitude there is an obligation both moral but also legal I believe against a reporter disclosing something which would so severely compromise national security.”

King claims that whistleblowers are aiding al-Qaeda by exposing the details on how the US government conducts surveillance operations.

He said: “By giving [al-Qaeda] such detail about what we are doing that enables them to adjust their tactics.”

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Putin on NSA leak: Govt surveillance shouldn’t break law (EXCLUSIVE)

RussiaToday RussiaToday·

Published on Jun 11, 2013

“If surveillance is in the framework of the law, then it’s ok. If not it is unacceptable. You can’t just listen to the phone call in Russia; you need a special order from court,” Putin said answering the question of RT’s Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan. Commenting on Obama’s statement that “You can’t have 100 per cent security and 100 per cent privacy,” Putin disagreed, saying it is possible if done within the law.

….

Putin on NSA leak: Government surveillance shouldn’t break law

Published time: June 11, 2013 14:53
Edited time: June 12, 2013 04:46

Data surveillance is an acceptable measure if done within the law, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin told RT while visiting the channel in the capital.

Speaking to RT the Russian president stressed that Snowden revealed “nothing we didn’t know before”, adding that surveillance “is becoming a global phenomenon in the context of combatting international terrorism”, and that “such methods are generally practicable”.

But Putin pointed out that “the question is how well those security agencies are controlled by the public.”

“I can tell you that, at least in Russia, you cannot just go and tap into someone’s phone conversation without a warrant issued by court,” Putin said answering the question of RT’s Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan.

“That’s more or less the way a civilized society should go about fighting terrorism with modern-day technology. As long as it is exercised within the boundaries of the law that regulates intelligence activities, it’s alright. But if it’s unlawful, then it’s bad.”

Commenting on Obama’s statement that “You can’t have 100 per cent security and 100 per cent privacy,” Putin disagreed, saying it is possible if done within the law.

Earlier on Tuesday, Putin’s press-secretary Dmitry Peskov told to a newspaper that Russia could consider the possibility of granting political asylum to 29-year-old Edward Snowden,  if such a request is made. The ex-CIA worker is behind one of the biggest leaks of our time as he disclosed the existence of PRISM, the National Security Agency’s (NSA) massive data-mining surveillance program, to The Guardian last week.

The whereabouts of whistleblower remain unknown after he checked out of a Hong Kong hotel on Monday after revealing his identity and making a public statement in a interview with The Guardian a day earlier.

‘Syria should have undertaken reform in due time’

Speaking about the conflict in Syria, the president said it was possible to avoid the civilian war by conducting reforms in due time.

“Syria as a country was rife for some kind of change. And the government of Syria should have felt that in due time and should have undertaken some reform,”
Putin said. “Had they done that, what we’re seeing in Syria today would have never happened.”

However, he added, one should take into account that the entire Middle East is currently finding itself in a state of uncertainty and conflict – and it’s wrong to try and interfere from outside.

“From the outside some people think that if you bring the entire region in compliance with someone’s specific idea of democracy, things will settle down, and everything will be all right in that region. But that’s not true. Considering that region’s background history, culture, religion – you cannot interfere with it from the outside.”

Putin pointed out that the West is supporting some certain organizations that are fighting Assad in Syria, and they are countering “those very same groups” in Mali.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, during his talk with Russia Today television channel's journalists and correspondents, June 11, 2013. (RT photo / Semyon Khorunzhy)Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, during his talk with Russia Today television channel’s journalists and correspondents, June 11, 2013. (RT photo / Semyon Khorunzhy)

“Where is the logic in that?” he said. “Our Western counterparts often tell us that the Al-Nusra is one of the key organizations in the Syrian military opposition. But it has been dubbed terrorist by the US Department of State, and it doesn’t even hide its links to Al-Qaeda. So will you let this organization join the future government of Syria? Our Western counterparts say no. Are you going to just make them go away once you have victory in Syria? They don’t know. It’s totally unclear.”

Putin reminded that the quality of life in Libya was one of the highest in the region before the regime change.

“What do you have there now? There is a war of everybody against everybody among various tribes, there is war for resources, and, I’m afraid, if we go the same way in Syria, there will be same havoc in Syria that we’re now witnessing in Libya,” he concluded. “Isn’t that enough from what we’re seeing in Pakistan and Afghanistan right now, where there’re terrorists that are not controlled by anyone, except for terrorists?”

Speaking about mass demonstrations, the president stressed that the government should control protesters, “put them in the legislative field,” if they “violate the law.”

“This is what happening both in the US and in Russia,” Putin said.

“Russia doesn’t try to influence Occupy activists, yet foreign agents try to do this in Russia,” he said, referring to the Occupy movement that initially started from protests in New York and then spread worldwide.

Read More Here

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RIA Novosti

Russia May Consider US Spy Leaker’s Asylum Request – Media

US National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden pictured during an interview with the Guardian

04:15 11/06/2013

MOSCOW, June 11 (RIA Novosti) – The Russian authorities will consider political asylum for Edward Snowden, who risks prosecution in the United States for his recent blockbuster spy leaks, if he sends a proper request, business daily Kommersant said Tuesday, citing the Kremlin spokesman.

“If we receive such a request, we will consider it,” Kommersant quoted presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov as saying.

Snowden, a 29-year-old former employee of the CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA), unmasked himself on Sunday as a source of recent disclosures about US government’s secret surveillance programs.

He said he was aware of possible prosecution but disclosed secret documents in response to America’s systematic surveillance of innocent citizens.

Read More Here

Establishment vs. Rebels

TheYoungTurks TheYoungTurks

Published on Jun 12, 2013

“In the old days it used to be Democrats versus Republicans, now that’s not really the paradigm anymore when it comes to big government apparently most of the Democrats and Republicans love it either way. And if you dare to strike back against big government well they will strike against you” Cenk Uygur (http://www.twitter.com/cenkuygur) host of The Young Turks discusses the response by the establishment and rebels to the Snowden leak.

Is it More Treasonous to Violate the Constitution or to Expose Those Violations?

Freda Art

Eric Blair
Activist Post

In a free society the government is supposed to be open and transparent while the citizens enjoy privacy. What, then, do you call a society where the government is ultra secretive and all citizens are spied on by the state?

Establishment pundits are frantically attempting to make the NSA spy scandal story about whether the whistleblower is a hero or a traitor instead of debating the real issue — whether broad government spying on U.S. citizens violates their Constitutional rights.

This divide-and-distract strategy has long been used to protect the real criminals to a free society. Some officials are taking the extreme position that the NSA whistleblower, Edward Snowden, committed treason by releasing proof of what most Americans already suspected, that their every move is being spied on by their government.

These officials, like Rep. Peter King (R-NY) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), also happen to be the staunchest advocates for destroying the Bill of Rights, the Fourth Amendment in particular. Snowden broke a corporate disclosure contract; these officials broke their oath to the Constitution. Who are the real traitors here?

Read More Here

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Sibel Edmonds’ Boiling Frogs

Pardon Me for Taking Offense with Your ‘Pardon- Seeking’ Petition

Tuesday, 11. June 2013

Do Not Mix Up Criminals with WhistleblowersSomeone had the gall to send me this pathetically misguided, ignorant, and demeaning petition requesting a Governmental Pardon for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

I say pathetic because I believe this was a genuine attempt to support this courageous whistleblower, but instead became an establishment-supporting, insulting and self-defeating petition due to the authors’-organizers’ ignorance.

I say misguided because this is a case where the criminals who have violated our Constitution and laws are the ones who should be seeking forgiveness and pardon from the people. The executive branch is the party which has violated the Constitution and broken the supreme laws of this nation, thus in need of repentance and pardoning. Not the courageous whistleblower who took his oath to protect the United States Constitution seriously and actually exercised it.

I say demeaning because it misrepresents and insults the guardians of the United States Constitution, and reduces these truth-telling whistleblowers to criminals-to those who have committed illegalities. Not only that, it simultaneously raises the status of a criminal government to those of kings and emperors who can do no wrong. When the kings engage in criminality they call it ‘the king’s given rights.’ When an irate minority dares to expose the kings’ criminality they are declared a criminal-to dare to challenge the kings.

The insulting ignoramuses who drafted this pathetic petition are giving the president and the executive branch of the United States of America the status of absolute kings and emperors.

Here we have a case where there is a president and his entourage who see themselves as the absolute and untouchable kings of the United States, and break with reckless abandon the supreme law of the United States, the Constitution. They do so repeatedly; with arrogance and impunity.

We have a case where a conscientious citizen of the United States does what his citizenship demands of him: he stands up and protects the Constitution of the United States by exposing the kings engaged in its violation and destruction.

So what do we have so far? Please repeat after me:

We have the United States Executive Branch which has suspended, violated and destructed the United States Constitution and its citizens’ rights.

We have the United States Legislative and Judicial Branches which have abdicated their responsibilities under the United States Constitution, and instead of overseeing and holding accountable the President and his cabinet, who in this case have been violating and destroying the United States Constitution, they have been protecting and collaborating with them.

And we have a true American, a citizen who has taken his US citizenship and citizen responsibilities that go with it very seriously-as demanded by the United States Constitution. He has courageously come forward to inform and warn his country of its rulers’ criminality.

Now please tell me who should be seeking a pardon here? The conscientious citizen who is protecting the mother-of-all laws of his nation-the Constitution? Or the kings who have suspended, violated and broken the laws of this nation? Or the Judiciary and Legislative Branches who have abandoned their responsibility to the people of this nation and their oath to the Constitution?

Read More Here

WashingtonPost WashingtonPost

Published on Jun 6, 2013

Members of Congress and The White House are defending a top secret NSA program that continues to collect data from millions of phone records, but civil liberties supporters remain skeptical. The Post’s Ellen Nakashima explains.

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CATO INSTITUTE

NSA Snooping: a Majority of Americans Believe What?

Yesterday, the Washington Post and the Pew Research Center released a joint poll that purportedly showed that “a large majority of Americans” believe the federal government should focus on “investigating possible terrorist threats even if personal privacy is compromised.”

But a careful look at the poll shows citizens are far less sanguine about surrendering their privacy rights, as the facts continue to be revealed.

Pollsters faced a difficult challenge—to accurately capture public opinion during a complex and evolving story. Recall, on Wednesday of last week, the story was about the NSA tracking Verizon phone records. So the pollsters drew up a perfectly reasonable and balanced question:

As you may know, it has been reported that the National Security Agency has been getting secret court orders to track telephone call records of MILLIONS of Americans in an effort to investigate terrorism. Would you consider this access to telephone call records an acceptable or unacceptable way for the federal government to investigate terrorism?

Fifty-six percent found this “acceptable.” Thus, the “majority of Americans” lead in the Washington Post.

However, on Thursday, the Washington Post revealed explosive details about the massive data-collection program PRISM—and the public was alerted that the NSA was not just collecting phone records, but email, Facebook, and other online records. So the pollsters quickly drew up a new question, asked starting Friday, from June 7-9:

Read More Here

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The Independent

Are there more spy revelations to come? America rages at NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and labels him a ‘traitor’

Snowden facing prosecution in hiding as ex-girlfriend writes of being ‘lost’ without him

Washington was in disarray last night as it attempted to determine exactly how damaging revelations of secret intelligence snooping programmes might be to American national security, as anger at the whistleblower behind them, 29-year-old Edward Snowden, continued to harden.

“He’s a traitor,” the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, declared.

The laying bare of two surveillance programmes run by the National Security Agency – and the prospect of more leaks possibly to come – had the US government scurrying in multiple directions; reassuring restive members of Congress, heading off growing complaints about the snooping activities from European allies and prioritising a nascent criminal investigation likely to lead to charges being filed against Mr Snowden.

But while President Obama would love to get Mr Snowden in a courtroom, his administration is now facing its own legal battle. The American Civil Liberties Union yesterday filed a lawsuit arguing that its mass collection of private data is illegal and should be stopped, a move that could eventually end with the programme being tested in the Supreme Court.

Top-level officials from NSA, FBI, the White House and State Department headed to Capitol Hill last night to give a behind-closed-doors briefing to the House of Representatives. They faced a likely barrage of questions about what, to some, looked like sloppy protection of secrets by the NSA.

The puzzlement is all the greater because of the background of Mr Snowden, who may or may not still be in hiding in Hong Kong. He had access to NSA data as a contract worker employed by the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, and the degree to which US intelligence agencies now rely on contract workers is now causing alarm. About a third of all those cleared to access classified materials last year were not government employees, the Washington Post said.

Read More Here

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Sibel Edmonds’   Boiling Frogs

What Is the Government’s Agenda?

Wednesday, 12. June 2013

USA: Where there is No Democracy that Holds Government Accountable; Only a Brainwashed People who are Chaff in the WindIt has been public information for a decade that the US government secretly, illegally, and unconstitutionally spies on its citizens. Congress and the federal courts have done nothing about this extreme violation of the US Constitution and statutory law, and the insouciant US public seems unperturbed.

In 2004 a whistleblower informed the New York Times that the National Security Agency (NSA) was violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) by ignoring the FISA court and spying on Americans without obtaining the necessary warrants. The corrupt New York Times put the interests of the US government ahead of those of the American public and sat on the story for one year until George W. Bush was safely reelected.

By the time the New York Times published the story of the illegal spying one year later, the law-breaking government had had time to mitigate the offense with ex post facto law or executive orders and explain away its law-breaking as being in the country’s interest.

Last year William Binney, who was in charge of NSA’s global digital data gathering program revealed that NSA had everyone in the US under total surveillance. Every email, Internet site visited and phone call is captured and stored. In 2012 Binney received the Callaway Award for Civic Courage, an annual award given to those who champion constitutional rights at risk to their professional and personal lives.

There have been a number of whistleblowers. For example, in 2006 Mark Klein revealed that AT&T had a secret room in its San Francisco office that NSA used to collect Internet and phone-call data from US citizens who were under no suspicion.

The presstitute media handled these stories in ways that protected the government’s lawlessness from scrutiny and public outrage. The usual spin was that the public needs to be safe from terrorists, and safety is what the government is providing.

The latest whistle blower, Edward Snowden, has sought refuge in Hong Kong, which has a better record of protecting free speech than the US government. Snowden did not trust any US news source and took the story to the British newspaper, the Guardian.

There is no longer any doubt whatsoever that the US government is lawless, that it regards the US Constitution as a scrap of paper, that it does not believe Americans have any rights other than those that the government tolerates at any point in time, and that the government has no fear of being held accountable by the weak and castrated US Congress, the sycophantic federal courts, a controlled media, and an insouciant public.

Binney and Snowden have described in precisely accurate detail the extreme danger from the government’s surveillance of the population. No one is exempt, not the Director of the CIA, US Army Generals, Senators and Representatives, not even the president himself.

Anyone with access to a computer and the Internet can find interviews with Binney and Snowden and become acquainted with why you do have very much indeed to fear whether or not you are doing anything wrong.

James Clapper, the lying Director of National Intelligence, who would have been perfectly at home in the Hitler or Stalin regimes, condemned Snowden as “reprehensible” for insisting that in a democracy the public should know what the government is doing. Clapper insisted that secretly spying on every ordinary American was essential in order to “protect our nation.”

Clapper is “offended” that Americans now know that the NSA is spying on the ordinary life of every American. Clapper wants Snowden to be severely punished for his “reckless disclosure” that the US government is totally violating the privacy that the US Constitution guarantees to every US citizen.

Read  More  Here

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The Transformation of Society

corbettreport corbettreport

Published on Jun 12, 2013

The US government has been violating the constituion and trampling on the bill of rights since virtually the inception of the country. The history of the US, like the history of every other country, is littered with the corpses of nice-sounding ideals, from false flag frame-ups to lead the nation into war to the persecution and even execution of political dissidents. But the point is that 50 years ago, America wanted to believe it was a nation of ideals, and many people did believe that. So what changed?…

Information chiefs worldwide sound alarm while US senator Dianne Feinstein orders NSA to review monitoring program

Barack Obama nsa

Officials in European capitals denounced the practice of secretly gathering digital information on Europeans as unacceptable. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

Barack Obama was facing a mounting domestic and international backlash against US surveillance operations on Monday as his administration struggled to contain one of the most explosive national security leaks in US history.

Political opinion in the US was split with some members of Congress calling for the immediate extradition from Hong Kong of the whistleblower, Edward Snowden. But other senior politicians in both main parties questioned whether US surveillance practices had gone too far.

Dianne Feinstein, chairman of the national intelligence committee, has ordered the NSA to review how it limits the exposure of Americans to government surveillance. But she made clear her disapproval of Snowden. “What he did was an act of treason,” she said.

Officials in European capitals demanded immediate answers from their US counterparts and denounced the practice of secretly gathering digital information on Europeans as unacceptable, illegal and a serious violation of basic rights. The NSA, meanwhile, asked the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation and said that it was assessing the damage caused by the disclosures.

Daniel Ellsberg, the former military analyst who revealed secrets of the Vietnam war through the Pentagon Papers in 1971, described Snowden’s leak as even more important and perhaps the most significant leak in American history.

Snowden disclosed his identity in an explosive interview with the Guardian, published on Sunday, which revealed he was a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden worked at the National Security Agency for the past four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell.

In his interview, Snowden revealed himself as the source for a series of articles in the Guardian last week, which included disclosures of a wide-ranging secret court order that demanded Verizon pass to the NSA the details of phone calls related to millions of customers, and a huge NSA intelligence system called Prism, which collects data on intelligence targets from the systems of some of the biggest tech companies.

Snowden said he had become disillusioned with the overarching nature of government surveillance in the US. “The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight. The result is people like myself have the latitude to go further than they are allowed to,” he said.

“My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them.”

As media interest intensified on Monday, Snowden checked out of the Hong Kong hotel where he had been staying, and moved to an undisclosed location.

Reacting to Snowden’s revelations, Paul Ryan, the former Republican vice-presidential nominee, raised questions about whether privacy was being unduly threatened. “I’m sure somebody can come up with a great computer program that says: ‘We can do X, Y, and Z,’ but that doesn’t mean that it’s right,” he told a radio station in Wisconsin. “I want to learn a lot more about it on behalf of the people I represent,” he added.

Pressure was growing on the White House to explain whether there was effective congressional oversight of the programmes revealed by Snowden. The director of national intelligence, James Clapper, said in an NBC interview that he had responded in the “least untruthful manner” possible when he denied in congressional hearings last year that the NSA collected data on millions of Americans.

Clapper also confirmed that Feinstein had asked for a review to “refine these NSA processes and limit the exposure to Americans’ private communications” and report back “in about a month”.

In Europe, the German chancellor Angela Merkel indicated she would press Obama on the revelations at a Berlin summit next week, while deputy European Commission chief Viviane Reding said she would press US officials in Dublin on Friday, adding that “a clear legal framework for the protection of personal data is not a luxury or constraint but a fundamental right”.

Peter Schaar, Germany’s federal data protection commissioner told the Guardian that it was unacceptable that US authorities have access to the data of European citizens “and the level of protection is lower than what is guaranteed for US citizens.” His Italian counterpart, Antonello Soro, said that the data dragnet “would not be legal in Italy” and would be “contrary to the principles of our legislation and would represent a very serious violation”.

Read Full Article Here

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MSNBC

Most in Congress direct anger at leaks, not NSA surveillance

, @zackroth

1:44 PM on 06/10/2013

Image: U.S. House Majority Leader Cantor takes part in a panel discussion titled "The Awesome Responsibility of Leadership" at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California
(U.S. Congressman and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (REUTERS/Gus Ruelas))

As Congress begins probing the release of documents that revealed details of a government surveillance program Monday, most lawmakers are condemning the disclosures as a threat to national security. But some in both parties are instead portraying the program as an example of dangerous government overreach.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said Monday morning that a “very serious” congressional probe of the leak would start today, when Obama administration officials will brief lawmakers on how the information became public. Cantor, a Virginia Republican, added that a broader briefing on the National Security Agency (NSA) program would occur Tuesday.

The U.S. Justice Department confirmed Sunday it had opened a criminal probe into the disclosures. Edward Snowden, a contractor working with the NSA, revealed himself as the source of the leaks, The Guardian reported Sunday.

Related: Watch Guardian’s Greenwald defends leaks as vital to democracy

Republicans have been relatively united in denouncing the leak.

“If Edward Snowden did in fact leak the NSA data as he claims, the United States government must prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law and begin extradition proceedings at the earliest date,” Rep. Peter King, who chairs the subcommittee on Counterterrorism & Intelligence, said in a statement.

 

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By J.B. WilliamsJune 10, 2013

NewsWithViews.com

As the nation searches for the proper peaceful remedy to the crisis known as Obama, good people of good intentions often research a common subject and arrive at a different conclusion. Such has been the case on the topic of whether or not Barack Hussein Obama can be impeached.

In a WND column dated July 14, 2011 titled Why Obama Cannot be Impeached, the writer states, “Rage continues to build across this country over the obvious forged birth certificate Barry Soetoro, aka Barack Obama, released April 27, 2011, as do calls for his impeachment. However, Obama cannot be impeached.”

The author’s position is based upon statements from Dr. Edwin Vieira, a Harvard trained attorney, who’s works are focused primarily on land rights and militias. Dr. Vieira issued his position in a 2008 piece written and released before the 2008 election, Vieira suggests that once Obama takes office via fraud, he cannot be impeached, on the basis that impeaching a usurper of the office would somehow validate his tenure in office. Is he right?

To be sure, the Obama Crisis presents a highly unusual set of circumstances, rising to the level of constitutional crisis in a number of ways. The proper peaceful remedy is indeed worthy of research and debate. Only once the people agree on a proper course of action, can action be taken… so, it is imperative that the people reach agreement on this matter.

Who is right in the debate is much less important than reaching an actionable position of agreement. The endless debate on the subject only leaves all concerned citizens paralyzed by confusion and lack of coherent direction in how to solve the crisis.

It is for this reason that I have returned to historical data on the subject of impeachment in search of the foundations for impeachment remedies found in Article II – Section IV of the U.S. Constitution.

“The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” – Article II – Section IV of the U.S. Constitution

I fully understand and even agree with the claim that Barack Hussein Obama (aka Barry Soetoro) gained access to the Office of President via massive fraud, including identity fraud, campaign fraud and campaign finance fraud, just for starters.

I further agree that Mr. Obama’s acts during his unconstitutional and illegal seizing of the Oval Office, as well as his unconstitutional acts while in office, rise to the level of impeachable offenses, high crimes, usurpations and likely even treason.

But I do not agree that Obama/Soetoro cannot be removed from office via impeachment. In fact, I believe that Obama can only be removed from office via impeachment. Here’s the basis for my belief…

James Madison explained the requirement for impeachment during the debates of the Constitutional Convention of 1787: “Some provision should be made for defending the community against the incapacity, negligence, or perfidy of the chief magistrate. He might pervert his administration into a scheme of peculation or oppression. He might betray his trust to foreign powers.”

In Federalist Paper No. 65, Alexander Hamilton explained that “impeachment of the president should take place for offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated political, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to society itself.”

And indeed, in Commentaries on the Constitution, Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story (1811-1845) explained: “The offenses to which the remedy of impeachment has been and will continue to be principally applied are of a political nature… What are aptly termed political offenses, growing out of personal misconduct, or gross neglect, or usurpation, or habitual disregard of the public interests.”

Common throughout historical references to the impeachment process is the concept that a violation or breach of public trust, or habitual disregard for the public interest is the fundamental definition of other high crimes and misdemeanors, as it relates to the Founders intended use of the impeachment clause found in Article II.

The legal debate over use of impeachment concerning immunity from criminal prosecutions of any individual occupying the Oval Office is covered quite extensively here. In conclusion, seizing the Oval Office by way of fraud, usurpations of the office, and acting in a manner at odds with public interests, constitutional authority or in breach of the public trust, are all impeachable offenses.

In Federalist Paper No. 70, Hamilton further explained: “Men in public trust will much oftener act in such a manner as to render them unworthy of being any longer trusted, than in such a manner as to make them obnoxious and subject to legal punishment.” – “Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment, and Punishment, according to Law.”

In short, the Oval Office (not the individual occupying the office) has protections against criminal charges or prosecutions during the tenure of office, be it legitimate tenure or not.

“In 1973, the Justice Department concluded that the indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions. We have been asked to summarize and review the analysis provided in support of that conclusion, and to consider whether any subsequent developments in the law lead us today to reconsider and modify or disavow that determination. We believe that the conclusion reached by the Department in 1973 still represents the best interpretation of the Constitution.”Full legal reference here

This means that before any occupant of the Oval Office can be charged with or prosecuted for crimes, they must first be removed from office via impeachment, so that the business of the people can continue while the individual is being prosecuted for criminal activities.

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Petition to Impeach Barack Hussein Obama

Fellowship of the Minds

impeach Obama

PETITION URGENTLY REQUESTING THAT  CONGRESS LAUNCH AN INDEPENDENT AND  COMPREHENSIVE INVESTIGATION INTO UNCONSTITUTIONAL AND IMPEACHABLE OFFENSES ON THE  PART OF  PRESIDENT  BARACK OBAMA

To: All members of the U.S. Congress:

Whereas, President Barack Obama not only failed to aid U.S. personnel under lethal and prolonged terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012, resulting in the deaths of a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans, but also led an outrageously deceitful cover-up for weeks afterward, rivaling the Watergate-era cover-up that ended the presidency of Richard Nixon;

Whereas, the IRS under Obama – in accord with direct instructions from congressional Democrats – has engaged in the most egregious and widespread attack on conservative groups in modern history, with the knowledge of top agency officials;

Whereas, the Obama Justice Department, on top of its many first-term scandals, has spied on and harassed journalists at Fox News and the Associated Press, prompting widespread, bipartisan condemnation of the DOJ for “criminalizing journalism”;

Whereas, top constitutional attorneys from across the political spectrum now agree that Obama has committed certain specific offenses that unquestionably rise to the level of impeachable “high crimes and misdemeanors”;

Whereas, one of these offenses – that of illegally conducting war against Libya – has been deemed by a bipartisan panel of constitutional experts to be “clearly an impeachable offense” and “gross usurpation of the war power”;

Whereas, Obama’s policy of targeted assassinations of U.S. citizens without any constitutionally required due process – including the drone assassination of an American-born 16-year-old as he was eating dinner – is unanimously deemed by experts, both liberal and conservative, as “an impeachable offense”;

Whereas, Obama’s Justice Department has presided over the disastrous “Fast and Furious” operation in which approximately 2,000 firearms were directed from U.S. gun shops across the U.S.-Mexico border and into the hands of members of Mexican drug cartels, resulting in the deaths of as many as 100 people, including U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry – a scandal that constitutional experts agree constitutes, at a minimum, clear grounds for impeaching Attorney General Eric Holder;

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Why Isn’t the Murder of an American Boy an Impeachable Offense?

by Jacob Hornberger, FFF

Article 2, Section 4, of the U.S. Constitution reads as follows: The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

In 1998, President Bill Clinton was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice for matters arising out of the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal.

If perjury and obstruction of justice constitute high crimes or misdemeanors, then doesn’t it seem rather obvious that the murder of an American citizen by the president would also constitute a high crime or misdemeanor, especially if the citizen is a child?

That’s precisely what President Obama, acting through U.S. national-security state agents, did on October 14, 2011. He murdered a 16-year-old American boy who was traveling in Yemen. The boy was Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, who was the son of accused terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki, who the CIA had assassinated two weeks before.

Why did President Obama and the CIA or the military kill Abdulrahman? The president, the CIA, and the Pentagon have all chosen to remain silent on the matter, refusing to even acknowledge that they killed the boy. But White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs implicitly provided the justification: “I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well being of their children. I don’t think becoming an al Qaeda jihadist terrorist is the best way to go about doing your business.”

So, there you have it: the boy was apparently killed because he was considered to have the wrong father.

But if that’s a legitimate justification for killing a child, there are obviously a lot more children at risk in this country.

Proponents of the war on terrorism argue that the killing of the teenager wasn’t really a murder but rather an assassination. But isn’t that a distinction without a difference?

After all, compare Obama’s killing of Abdulrahman with Chilean Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s killing of Orlando Letelier. Pinochet took power in 1973, during the time that the Cold War and the war on communism were being waged. Pinochet, who the U.S. national-security state had helped install into power, not only began rounding up, incarcerating, torturing, abusing, and executing suspected communists without any judicial process, he also embarked on an program to assassinate Chilean communists found overseas.

Agents of Pinochet’s counterpart to the CIA, a secret police force called DINA, planned and orchestrated the killing of Orlando Letelier on the streets of Washington, D.C. Why was Letelier targeted for death? He was a socialist, a Chilean citizen who had served in the administration of President Salvador Allende, the democratically elected Marxist president whom Pinochet, President Richard Nixon, the CIA, and the U.S. military ousted from power and replaced with Pinochet’s military dictatorship. Therefore, as part of the war on communism, Letelier was considered to be a legitimate target for assassination.

On September 21, 1976, an assassination team headed by a man named Michael Townleyexploded a bomb that the team had planted under Letelier’s car. Letelier was killed, along with his American assistant who was also in the car, 25-year-old Ronni Moffitt.

Interestingly, the U.S. Justice Department did not consider the assassination to be legitimate under the concept of war and enemy combatants, notwithstanding the fact that the Cold War and global war on communism were still being waged. The Justice Department treated the killings of Letelier and Moffitt as murders. Townley and his team were indicted and prosecuted for the murders of Letelier and Moffitt.

How is Obama’s killing of Abdulrahman any different from Pinochet’s murder of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt? In the one case, a 16-year-old boy has had his life snuffed out because he had the wrong father. In the other case, a man had his life snuffed out because he had the wrong philosophical beliefs. Given that the Letelier and Moffitt killings were treated as murders, why shouldn’t the Abdulraham killing be treated as murder too?

Read More Here

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RTQuestionMore RTQuestionMore

Father of Chechen killed in Boston probe wants FBI agents tried

The father of a Chechen man killed by an FBI agent as he was questioned over links to the Boston marathon bombing has claimed his son was shot in the back of the head in an extra-judicial execution.

Boston bomber friend shot dead by FBI

Mr Todashev, right, is believed to have been an associate of Tamerlan Tsarnaev Photo: Getty Images

By , Moscow and Philip Sherwell in New York

5:41PM BST 30 May 2013

Abdulbaki Todashev said his eldest son Ibragim was hit with seven bullets – six to his body and a “control shot” fired into his head, designed to finish him off.

Mr Todashev, 27, was killed at his home in Orlando, Florida, on May 22 as an FBI special agent and several other law enforcement personnel questioned him about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the alleged Boston bomber who died in a shoot-out with police after the attack.

The FBI has said that Mr Todashev, who moved to the US from Russia in 2008, was shot when he initiated a “violent confrontation” with his questioners.

Mr Todashev was said to have confessed to his involvement in an unsolved 2011 triple murder with Tsarnaev when he became violent, according to agents.

His father disputed that view at a Moscow press conference as he showed a series of photographs that he said were his son’s bullet-riddled corpse, and called for the officers responsible for the death to be prosecuted.

 

Read Full Article   Here

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Issa subpoenas State Dept. documents on Benghazi talking points

By Molly K. Hooper 05/28/13 01:23 PM ET

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has subpoenaed State Department documents related to the Benghazi talking points, according to a letter sent to Secretary of State John Kerry obtained by The Hill.

In the letter, Issa states that the department’s release of 100 emails earlier this month was “incomplete.” Issa demands that Kerry produce “relevant documents through subpoena. The enclosed subpoena covers documents and the communications related to talking points prepared for members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and used by Ambassador Susan Rice during her September 16th, 2012, appearances on CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, and CNN.”Issa said that the documents released on May 20 did not answer “critical” questions posed by the committee as it investigates what happened during the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and the aftermath of that terror attack that killed former U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stephens and three other Americans.

More than one week after the attack, Rice took to the airwaves to blame the attack on a protest over an anti-Islam video, denying that it had anything to do with terrorism, despite the CIA’s belief that the attack was caused by terrorists.

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