Skip to main content

Home/ Socialism and the End of the American Dream/ Group items tagged Issues

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
1More

'Clinton death list': 33 spine-tingling cases - 0 views

www.wnd.com/...-list-33-most-intriguing-cases Clinton-Body-Count
shared by Gary Edwards on 05 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 05 Feb 17
     
    "(Editor's note: This list was originally published in August 2016 and has gone viral on the web. WND is running it again as American voters cast their ballots for the nation's next president on Election Day.) How many people do you personally know who have died mysteriously? How about in plane crashes or car wrecks? Bizarre suicides? People beaten to death or murdered in a hail of bullets? And what about violent freak accidents - like separate mountain biking and skiing collisions in Aspen, Colorado? Or barbells crushing a person's throat? Bill and Hillary Clinton attend a funeral Apparently, if you're Bill or Hillary Clinton, the answer to that question is at least 33 - and possibly many more. Talk-radio star Rush Limbaugh addressed the issue of the "Clinton body count" during an August show. "I swear, I could swear I saw these stories back in 1992, back in 1993, 1994," Limbaugh said. He cited a report from Rachel Alexander at Townhall.com titled, "Clinton body count or left-wing conspiracy? Three with ties to DNC mysteriously die." Limbaugh said he recalled Ted Koppel, then-anchor of ABC News' "Nightline," routinely having discussions on the issue following the July 20, 1993, death of White House Deputy Counsel Vince Foster. In fact, Limbaugh said, he appeared on Koppel's show. "One of the things I said was, 'Who knows what happened here? But let me ask you a question.' I said, 'Ted, how many people do you know in your life who've been murdered? Ted, how many people do you know in your life that have died under suspicious circumstances?' "Of course, the answer is zilch, zero, nada, none, very few," Limbaugh chuckled. "Ask the Clintons that question. And it's a significant number. It's a lot of people that they know who have died, who've been murdered. "And the same question here from Rachel Alexander. It's amazing the cycle that exists with the Clintons. [Citing Townhall]: 'What it
1More

Impeach Judge James Robart for violating sovereignty and Constitution - 0 views

www.conservativereview.com/...g-sovereignty-and-constitution Byron-York Trump-Immigration-Order
shared by Gary Edwards on 08 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 08 Feb 17
     
    "It's still hard to believe we now live in a country where a district judge can demand that we bring in refugees from state sponsors of terror and failed states saturated with terrorists and no data systems during a time of war. It's almost unfathomable that a district judge, an institution created by Congress, can overturn long-standing refugee law and bar the federal government from prioritizing persecuted religious minorities for refugee resettlement. All in contravention to statute, numerous clauses of the Constitution, the social contract, the social compact, popular sovereignty, jurisdictional sovereignty, and 200 years of case law. If Obergefell redefined the building block of all civilization, Judge James Robart's ruling redefined the building block of a sovereign nation. It's hard to comprehend a judicial opinion more divorced from our Constitution, sovereignty, fundamental laws, founding values, history, and tradition. It's also hard to imagine an opinion that is of greater consequence - unless it is ignored. In the long run, Congress must strip the federal judiciary of their power grab and restore Congress' plenary power over immigration, as it was since our founding. However, in the meantime, it's time to make impeachment great again. Impeachment was a critical check on abuse of power   Before the growth of political parties killed the separation of powers, the tool of impeachment was regarded by our founders as one of the most effective ways of checking the executive and judicial branches of government. By my count, impeachment is referenced 58 times in the Federalist Papers and countless times during the Constitutional Convention. Impeachment [U.S.CONST. art. II, §4] was not only reserved for those who engage in criminal behavior. It was clearly designed to check abuse of power. As the Congressional Research Service observes, Congress has identified "improperly exceeding or abusing the powers of the office" as a criterion for
1More

Do Obama's Executive Orders Reveal A Pattern? by Warren Beatty at American Thinker - 0 views

www.americanthinker.com/printpage executive-orders Obammunism Tyranny
shared by Gary Edwards on 18 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 18 Jul 12
     
    The Obama Executive Orders are frightening steps on the road to the destruction of our beloved Constitution and the implementation of totalitarian tyranny. The thing is, neither Obama or Congress can issue an executive order or pass a law that compromises the Constitution, including the rights and liberty of individual citizen and the States. The Constitution is a document of strictly "enumerated powers" - NOT "implied powers". These executive orders are un Constitutional!!!!!! excerpt: President Barack Hussein "kill list" Obama has offered over 900 Executive Orders (EO), and he is not even through his first term. He is creating a wonderland of government controls covering everything imaginable, including a list of "Emergency Powers" and martial law EOs. And while Obama is busy issuing EOs to control everything inside the US, he has been issuing EOs to force us to submit to international regulations instead of our US Constitution. And comments by North Carolina governor Beverly Perdue and former OMB director Peter Orszag only contribute to this pattern. Is it now time to start connecting the dots? Obama signed EO 13603 on March 22, 2012. Then he signed EO 13617 on June 25, 2012, declaring a national emergency. Then he signed EO 13618 on July 6, 2012. In EO 13603, entitled, "National Defense Resources Preparedness," Obama says (among other things) that [we must]: be prepared, in the event of a potential threat to the security of the United States, to take actions necessary to ensure the availability of adequate resources and production capability, including services and critical technology, for national defense requirements; Obama has the power, through this EO, to "nationalize" (not seize) private assets in order to protect national interests. Further, the EO effectively states that he can: 1. "identify" requirements for emergencies 2. "assess" the capability of the country's industrial and technological base 3. "be prepared" t
1More

Bankers Get $4 Trillion Gift From Barney Frank: David Reilly - Bloomberg - 1 views

www.bloomberg.com/...barney-frank-david-reilly.html Dodd-Frank-Act banksters financial-collapse Federal-Reserve-Bankster-Cartel
shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Nov 13
     
    excerpt: "While banks opposed the legislation, they should cheer for its passage by the full Congress in the New Year: There are huge giveaways insuring the government will again rescue banks and Wall Street if the need arises. Nuggets Gleaned Here are some of the nuggets I gleaned from days spent reading Frank's handiwork: -- For all its heft, the bill doesn't once mention the words "too-big-to-fail," the main issue confronting the financial system. Admitting you have a problem, as any 12- stepper knows, is the crucial first step toward recovery. -- Instead, it supports the biggest banks. It authorizes Federal Reserve banks to provide as much as $4 trillion in emergency funding the next time Wall Street crashes. So much for "no-more-bailouts" talk. That is more than twice what the Fed pumped into markets this time around. The size of the fund makes the bribes in the Senate's health-care bill look minuscule. -- Oh, hold on, the Federal Reserve and Treasury Secretary can't authorize these funds unless "there is at least a 99 percent likelihood that all funds and interest will be paid back." Too bad the same models used to foresee the housing meltdown probably will be used to predict this likelihood as well. More Bailouts -- The bill also allows the government, in a crisis, to back financial firms' debts. Bondholders can sleep easy -- there are more bailouts to come. -- The legislation does create a council of regulators to spot risks to the financial system and big financial firms. Unfortunately this group is made up of folks who missed the problems that led to the current crisis. -- Don't worry, this time regulators will have better tools. Six months after being created, the council will report to Congress on "whether setting up an electronic database" would be a help. Maybe they'll even get to use that Internet thingy. -- This group, among its many powers, can restrict the ability of a financial firm to trade for its own account. Perha
7More

DOJ Seeks Removal Of Restrictions On Computer Search Warrants - 0 views

www.mintpressnews.com/...190535 surveillance state digital-privacy remote-computer-search 4th Amendment
shared by Paul Merrell on 13 May 14 - No Cached
  • The Justice Department recently submitted proposed new rules on the procedures and practices of the department’s agencies and bureaus. Among the suggested changes is a modification of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure Rule 41(b), which empowers a federal court to issue a warrant allowing the federal government to conduct a search of a computer or computer network involved in a criminal investigation. Under current regulations, a warrant issued by a federal court is only valid in that court’s district. As there are 94 federal judicial districts, investigating a widespread attack may require either petitioning dozens of district courts or acting extrajudicially by not seeking a warrant. An extrajudicial investigation, however, cannot be used if criminal convictions are sought, as evidence gathered in this manner is not typically admissible in court. The Justice Department is seeking to make remote access warrants to search, seize and copy electronic information valid for all federal districts.
  • The Justice Department argues that due to the sophistication of cyber-criminals, an offending computer or computer cluster can sit in a district separate from the district where the hackers that infected the target computer anonymously are and separate from the investigators’ district. “Criminals are using multiple computers in many districts simultaneously as part of complex criminal schemes, and effectively investigating and disrupting these schemes often requires remote access to Internet-connected computers in many different districts,” wrote then-acting Assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman in a September letter to the Advisory Committee on the Criminal Rules. “Botnets are a significant threat to the public: they are used to conduct large-scale denial of service attacks, steal personal and financial data, and distribute malware designed to invade the privacy of users of the host computers,” Raman continued. In the letter, Raman cited an investigation of a child porn site that uses The Onion Router Network, or Tor, to anonymize its traffic. The Justice Department argues that it knows the site’s hosting server location, but without a warrant local to the server, the department is prevented from retrieving the server’s user records — including IP and MAC addresses. In most cases, however, law enforcement do not know the physical location of the site’s server, making it impossible to request a specific warrant.
  • In these cases, the Justice Department could request a blanket warrant. This would allow the department to set up a “zero-day” attack on the server — an attack exploiting a manufacturer-unknown or -permitted security flaw, allowing access to the system’s operating software. However, a Texas judge denied the FBI access to such a warrant, saying the Justice Department’s use of “zero-day” attacks in its investigation exposes the public and the target to unknown risks. One typical type of a “zero-day” attack is an infected email that could affect a large number of innocent people if the target used a public computer to access his email. The FBI planned to install a Remote Administration Tool, or RAT, which would distribute such emails in a partially-targeted spam mail distribution. Last year, Federal Magistrate Judge Stephen Smith of the Houston Division of the Southern District of Texas ruled that this was a gross overreach of investigatory intrusion, blocking the plan temporarily. A “zero-day” attack has the potential to activate and control the targeted computer’s peripherals, such as webcams and microphones.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Following this ruling, based on the assumptions that federal law enforcement fundamentally act in good faith and that there may be a legitimate need for remote exploitation of computer data, the Justice Department sought to introduce changes to the rules that would overcome Smith’s objections. The proposed change to Rule 41(b) would allow magistrate judges “… to issue a warrant to use remote access to search electronic storage media and to seize electronically stored information located within or outside that district.” The Justice Department has indicated that it wants warrants permitting multiple computers to be searched at the same time, as well as permission to search all of the email and social media accounts accessible from a single computer. Such access would constitute a violation of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, as the government, under the act, must make demonstrate probable cause to each targeted service provider and obtain and serve a warrant for each service provider. A warrant to search every account active on a computer would be actively bypassing the act’s numerous safeguards.
  • Privacy advocates fear that this rule change would allow prosecutors and the Justice Department to seek out magistrates likely to give them their requested warrants, creating a situation in which the federal government could have a “warrant shop” with just one judge for the whole of the nation. In light of allegations of federal government over-policing — including revelations of aggressive domestic and international electronic spying by the FBI and the National Security Agency — many advocates argue that an examination of the federal government’s commitment to the Fourth Amendment is needed. “The proposed amendment would significantly expand the government’s authority to conduct remote searches of electronic storage media,” the American Civil Liberties Union wrote in a memorandum early last month. “It would also expand the government’s power to engage in computer hacking in the course of criminal investigations, including through the use of malware and other techniques that pose a risk to internet security and that raise Fourth Amendment and policy concerns. “In light of these concerns, the ACLU recommends that the Advisory Committee exercise extreme caution before granting the government new authority to remotely search individuals’ electronic data.” The rules are scheduled to be discussed at the meeting of the Judiciary’s Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure later this month.
  • Paul Merrell on 13 May 14
     
    The proposed rule change is at pp. 499-501 here. http://www.uscourts.gov/uscourts/RulesAndPolicies/rules/Agenda%20Books/Standing/ST2014-05.pdf#page499 (very large PDF).  This is not just about the government being granted permission to exploit vulnerabilities unknown to the computer owner; the issue arose in a case where the government sought judicial permission to implant a Trojan Horse in a suspect's computer. Moreover, the proposed rule goes far beyond the confines of that case, purporting to authorize the government to skip merrily along searching computers not specified in the warrant, along the purported botnet. To put the icing on the cake, the government wants to be relieved from the requirement that they apply for a warrant in the district in which the computer to be searched is located. ("Oh, Goody! Let's start shopping around for the judges we like instead of the ones we are now required to persuade. What? The Mississippi judge refused to sign the warrant? Oh well, let's try it with that other judge we like, the one in Gnome, Alaska.") In other words, what the government seeks is authority for "general warrants," the very evil that the 4th Amendment was designed to outlaw. Even more outrageously, the proposed rule provides in part: "For a warrant to use remote access to search electronic storage media and seize or copy electronically stored information, the officer must make reasonable efforts to serve a copy of the warrant on the person whose property *was* searched or whose information *was* seized or copied. Service may be accomplished by any means, including electronic means, reasonably calculated to reach that person." Not the use of the past tense "was." So after they have drained your computer of all its data, they may permissibly install a batch file that will display a copy of the warrant on your monitor the next time you boot your computer. With a big red lipstick imprint of a kiss imprinted in the warrant's bottom margin, no doubt
  • Paul Merrell on 13 May 14
     
    The proposed rule change is at pp. 499-501 here. http://www.uscourts.gov/uscourts/RulesAndPolicies/rules/Agenda%20Books/Standing/ST2014-05.pdf#page499 (very large PDF).  This is not just about the government being granted permission to exploit vulnerabilities unknown to the computer owner; the issue arose in a case where the government sought judicial permission to implant a Trojan Horse in a suspect's computer. Moreover, the proposed rule goes far beyond the confines of that case, purporting to authorize the government to skip merrily along searching computers not specified in the warrant, along the purported botnet. To put the icing on the cake, the government wants to be relieved from the requirement that they apply for a warrant in the district in which the computer to be searched is located. In other words, what the government seeks is authority for "general warrants," the very evil that the 4th Amendment was designed to outlaw. Even more outrageously, the proposed rule provides in part: "For a warrant to use remote access to search electronic storage media and seize or copy electronically stored information, the officer must make reasonable efforts to serve a copy of the warrant on the person whose property *was* searched or whose information *was* seized or copied. Service may be accomplished by any means, including electronic means, reasonably calculated to reach that person." Not the use of the past tense "was." So after they have drained your computer of all its data, they may permissibly install a batch file that will display a copy of the warrant on your monitor the next time you boot your computer. With a big red lipstick imprint of a kiss imprinted at the bottom.  To be continued after this is intially posted to Diigo so the content isn't cut off.   
5More

Court Requires Review of State Secrets Documents - 0 views

fas.org/...state-secrets-review DoJ no-fly-list state-secrets in-camera-review civil-liberties
shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • Over the objections of government attorneys, a federal judge said yesterday that he would require in camera review of documents that the government says are protected by the state secrets privilege. The issue arose in the case of Gulet Mohamed v. Eric Holder, challenging the constitutionality of the “no fly” list. The government had argued that it is “inappropriate” for a court to review such records to verify that they are validly privileged, and that instead the court should grant dismissal of case on the basis of official declarations. (Gov’t Resists Court Review of State Secrets, Secrecy News, August 27). The government moved for reconsideration of an August 6 order to produce the records for in camera review. Yesterday, Judge Anthony J. Trenga of the Eastern District of Virginia granted the government’s motion for reconsideration, but he said that having reconsidered the matter, he determined that he had been right the first time around. “Upon reconsideration of its Order, however, the Court finds that none of [the] objections justifies vacating the Order, as the defendants request. The Court therefore affirms its Order.” “This case involves complex and unsettled issues pertaining to the respective roles of the legislative, executive and judicial branches,” Judge Trenga wrote. “One central issue is the extent to which the War on Terrorism may expand the ability of the executive branch to act in ways that cannot otherwise be justified.”
  • Over the objections of government attorneys, a federal judge said yesterday that he would require in camera review of documents that the government says are protected by the state secrets privilege. The issue arose in the case of Gulet Mohamed v. Eric Holder, challenging the constitutionality of the “no fly” list. The government had argued that it is “inappropriate” for a court to review such records to verify that they are validly privileged, and that instead the court should grant dismissal of case on the basis of official declarations. (Gov’t Resists Court Review of State Secrets, Secrecy News, August 27). The government moved for reconsideration of an August 6 order to produce the records for in camera review. Yesterday, Judge Anthony J. Trenga of the Eastern District of Virginia granted the government’s motion for reconsideration, but he said that having reconsidered the matter, he determined that he had been right the first time around. “Upon reconsideration of its Order, however, the Court finds that none of [the] objections justifies vacating the Order, as the defendants request. The Court therefore affirms its Order.”
  • “This case involves complex and unsettled issues pertaining to the respective roles of the legislative, executive and judicial branches,” Judge Trenga wrote. “One central issue is the extent to which the War on Terrorism may expand the ability of the executive branch to act in ways that cannot otherwise be justified.” The Court “understands its limited institutional competence to assess claims of national security and its obligation not to extend its review of claims of state secrets beyond what is necessary for the Court to perform its institutional role,” Judge Trenga wrote. Nevertheless, under current circumstances “the Court concludes that it is necessary for the Court to review at this stage certain of the underlying documents as to which the state secrets privilege is asserted.” “This case involves the extraordinary exercise of executive branch authority to operate a program [the "no fly" procedure] that results in the deprivation of basic liberties according to secret executive branch decision making, without pre-deprivation judicial review…. [Therefore,] the Court has a particularly strong and heightened institutional responsibility in these circumstances to review and assess the propriety of such executive branch activity since to dismiss this case as the defendants request would, in essence, judicially sanction conduct that has far-reaching implications.”
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Merely relying on government assertions of privilege without independent review of their basis and validity is inadequate since “In many instances, the privilege claims are conclusory, and it is difficult, if not impossible, to assess the merits of those claims….” “The Court therefore cannot accept, without further inquiry and review, that all of the documents as to which the state secrets privilege has been invoked in fact contain state secrets, or that any state secrets that might be contained in the listed documents would preclude the litigation of the plaintiff’s claims…,” Judge Trenga wrote. He ordered the government to produce the relevant documents for in camera review on or before October 15, 2014. In a footnote, Judge Trenga’s Order contains a rare judicial acknowledgment that “The government’s assertion of the state secrets privilege in certain cases has been less than reassuring. See Reynolds v. United States, 345 U.S. 1 (1953), in which it became apparent years later, after the claimed state secrets document was declassified, that it did not implicate state secrets….”
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Sep 14
     
    The DoJ is likely to take an immediate appeal from this order. But federal judges are showing increasing hostility to the secrecy around the government's designation of people on the no-fly list. Whether the Supreme Court would support the government in a Due Process challenge to the secrecy of the no-fly list and its procedures is an open question.  
8More

Google Chrome Listening In To Your Room Shows The Importance Of Privacy Defense In Depth - 0 views

www.privateinternetaccess.com/...ce-of-privacy-defense-in-depth surveillance state Google-Chrome Chromium audio-surveillance digital-surveillance
shared by Paul Merrell on 23 Jun 15 - No Cached
  • Yesterday, news broke that Google has been stealth downloading audio listeners onto every computer that runs Chrome, and transmits audio data back to Google. Effectively, this means that Google had taken itself the right to listen to every conversation in every room that runs Chrome somewhere, without any kind of consent from the people eavesdropped on. In official statements, Google shrugged off the practice with what amounts to “we can do that”.It looked like just another bug report. "When I start Chromium, it downloads something." Followed by strange status information that notably included the lines "Microphone: Yes" and "Audio Capture Allowed: Yes".
  • Without consent, Google’s code had downloaded a black box of code that – according to itself – had turned on the microphone and was actively listening to your room.A brief explanation of the Open-source / Free-software philosophy is needed here. When you’re installing a version of GNU/Linux like Debian or Ubuntu onto a fresh computer, thousands of really smart people have analyzed every line of human-readable source code before that operating system was built into computer-executable binary code, to make it common and open knowledge what the machine actually does instead of trusting corporate statements on what it’s supposed to be doing. Therefore, you don’t install black boxes onto a Debian or Ubuntu system; you use software repositories that have gone through this source-code audit-then-build process. Maintainers of operating systems like Debian and Ubuntu use many so-called “upstreams” of source code to build the final product.Chromium, the open-source version of Google Chrome, had abused its position as trusted upstream to insert lines of source code that bypassed this audit-then-build process, and which downloaded and installed a black box of unverifiable executable code directly onto computers, essentially rendering them compromised. We don’t know and can’t know what this black box does. But we see reports that the microphone has been activated, and that Chromium considers audio capture permitted.
  • This was supposedly to enable the “Ok, Google” behavior – that when you say certain words, a search function is activated. Certainly a useful feature. Certainly something that enables eavesdropping of every conversation in the entire room, too.Obviously, your own computer isn’t the one to analyze the actual search command. Google’s servers do. Which means that your computer had been stealth configured to send what was being said in your room to somebody else, to a private company in another country, without your consent or knowledge, an audio transmission triggered by… an unknown and unverifiable set of conditions.Google had two responses to this. The first was to introduce a practically-undocumented switch to opt out of this behavior, which is not a fix: the default install will still wiretap your room without your consent, unless you opt out, and more importantly, know that you need to opt out, which is nowhere a reasonable requirement. But the second was more of an official statement following technical discussions on Hacker News and other places. That official statement amounted to three parts (paraphrased, of course):
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • 1) Yes, we’re downloading and installing a wiretapping black-box to your computer. But we’re not actually activating it. We did take advantage of our position as trusted upstream to stealth-insert code into open-source software that installed this black box onto millions of computers, but we would never abuse the same trust in the same way to insert code that activates the eavesdropping-blackbox we already downloaded and installed onto your computer without your consent or knowledge. You can look at the code as it looks right now to see that the code doesn’t do this right now.2) Yes, Chromium is bypassing the entire source code auditing process by downloading a pre-built black box onto people’s computers. But that’s not something we care about, really. We’re concerned with building Google Chrome, the product from Google. As part of that, we provide the source code for others to package if they like. Anybody who uses our code for their own purpose takes responsibility for it. When this happens in a Debian installation, it is not Google Chrome’s behavior, this is Debian Chromium’s behavior. It’s Debian’s responsibility entirely.3) Yes, we deliberately hid this listening module from the users, but that’s because we consider this behavior to be part of the basic Google Chrome experience. We don’t want to show all modules that we install ourselves.
  • If you think this is an excusable and responsible statement, raise your hand now.Now, it should be noted that this was Chromium, the open-source version of Chrome. If somebody downloads the Google product Google Chrome, as in the prepackaged binary, you don’t even get a theoretical choice. You’re already downloading a black box from a vendor. In Google Chrome, this is all included from the start.This episode highlights the need for hard, not soft, switches to all devices – webcams, microphones – that can be used for surveillance. A software on/off switch for a webcam is no longer enough, a hard shield in front of the lens is required. A software on/off switch for a microphone is no longer enough, a physical switch that breaks its electrical connection is required. That’s how you defend against this in depth.
  • Of course, people were quick to downplay the alarm. “It only listens when you say ‘Ok, Google’.” (Ok, so how does it know to start listening just before I’m about to say ‘Ok, Google?’) “It’s no big deal.” (A company stealth installs an audio listener that listens to every room in the world it can, and transmits audio data to the mothership when it encounters an unknown, possibly individually tailored, list of keywords – and it’s no big deal!?) “You can opt out. It’s in the Terms of Service.” (No. Just no. This is not something that is the slightest amount of permissible just because it’s hidden in legalese.) “It’s opt-in. It won’t really listen unless you check that box.” (Perhaps. We don’t know, Google just downloaded a black box onto my computer. And it may not be the same black box as was downloaded onto yours. )Early last decade, privacy activists practically yelled and screamed that the NSA’s taps of various points of the Internet and telecom networks had the technical potential for enormous abuse against privacy. Everybody else dismissed those points as basically tinfoilhattery – until the Snowden files came out, and it was revealed that precisely everybody involved had abused their technical capability for invasion of privacy as far as was possible.Perhaps it would be wise to not repeat that exact mistake. Nobody, and I really mean nobody, is to be trusted with a technical capability to listen to every room in the world, with listening profiles customizable at the identified-individual level, on the mere basis of “trust us”.
  • Privacy remains your own responsibility.
  • Paul Merrell on 23 Jun 15
     
    And of course, Google would never succumb to a subpoena requiring it to turn over the audio stream to the NSA. The Tor Browser just keeps looking better and better. https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en
1More

Everyone in Washington DC Knows that Obama is Ineligible for Office : Candian Free Press - 0 views

canadafreepress.com/...22221 birth-certificate constitutional-challenge obammunism birthers
shared by Gary Edwards on 24 Apr 10 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 24 Apr 10
     
    Wow.  This issue isn't going to go away.  This summary sticks to the Obama birth issues, and stays out of the further complications raised by Obama's Indonesian citizenship that was never converted to American.  Nor does it tag Obama's problems of being officially registered as a recipient of foreign student aid!  Recently released records fully document that Barack Obama received college financial aid in the US as a 'foreign student from Indonesia'.  Records from Columbia and Harvard are not available.  But there is the troublesome issue that while an undergrad at Columbia, Obama and two of his Muslim pals obtained a travel visa to Indonesia and Pakistan.  At the the time, these visa's were not available to American Citizens!   excerpt:  Members from all three branches of the Federal government already know that Barack Hussein Obama is ineligible for the office of President. National leaders, to include members of the US Supreme Court, already know that Barack Hussein Obama is not a "natural born citizen" of the United States of America, and therefore, is ineligible for the office he currently holds. (See JB's new article on The Bottom Line on Natural Born Citizen) What they don't know is how long it will take for most Americans to figure it out, or what to do about it. The diversionary search for an authentic birth certificate is ongoing and Obama has now spent in excess of $2 million in legal fees to keep that search alive.
1More

Yes, Islam condones wife beatings - 0 views

www.calgaryherald.com/...story.html islam condones yes
shared by Joseph Skues on 23 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • Joseph Skues on 23 Jan 11
     
    "Recently, Marvin Levant (Dec. 28), Steve Harris (Dec. 30), Syed Soharwardy (Jan. 2), and Riazuddin Ahmed (Jan. 5) debated Islam through the forum of the Herald's letters to the editor. The issue of wife beating and gender inequality in Islam has become convoluted and highly controversial as many Muslims try to sugar-coat the ugly truths and others try to shed some light on the issue. Soharwardy's statement that "Beating one's wife is not only wrong, it is criminal and completely un-Islamic" is incorrect. The Qur'an says that "men are in charge of women because Allah has made one of them (men) to excel the other (women), thus man's superiority over women . . . good women are the obedient ones . . . admonish the rebellious women and banish them, and scourge them (whip them severely to inflict pain) (4:34) . . . smote them (hit or strike with the hand or with a weapon causing pain, beat them . . . (4:62)". Islam does not recognize gender equality. For example, polygamy is accepted in Islam, but polyandry is not. A woman's testimony is considered half as worthy as a man's in court; a son inherits twice as much as a daughter does. Muslim men may marry Muslim, Jewish or Christian women, but Muslim women can marry only Muslim men. In short, sharia law leads to the inhuman treatment of Muslim women by their husbands and others, especially in South Asia and the Middle East. Higher education is emphasized more for sons than for daughters; in cultural honour killings, almost always women are the target for murder. Under sharia, divorced Muslim women get custody of their sons under eight years of age and daughters until puberty, and then the fathers take the children away. Sharia enabled one of the worst fundamentalists, the vile and ruthless military dictator, Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, to put more than 15,000 rape victims in jail because they could not comply with the absurd Islamic condition requiring them to have numerous male witnesses of their victimization. They were char
1More

The Daily Bell - Occupy Wall Street Demands Global UN Tax and Worldwide G20 Protest - 0 views

www.thedailybell.com/...-Tax-and-Worldwide-G20-Protest Banksters OWS
shared by Gary Edwards on 25 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 25 Oct 11
     
    Occupy's busting out on a new path ... So Adbusters is asking people all around the world to march on Oct. 29. "We want to send a clear message that we the people want to slow down this global casino." And Adbusters does have one specific demand, a 1 percent tax on financial-sector transactions (perhaps stocks, bonds, foreign-currency trades and derivatives). Some form of that idea, known as the "Robin Hood" tax, has been around for a while and might actually fly. - Jerry Large/Seattle Times Dominant Social Theme: We want justice for the world and the UN will give it to us. Free-Market Analysis: Kalle Lasn, founder of Adbusters magazine, based in Vancouver, B.C. - the magazine that issued the call for the initial Occupy Wall Street protests - has called on people to protest the upcoming G20 while demanding a one-percent tax on financial transactions. The revenue raised would be enormous and the lingering question is where this incredible revenue stream would be directed. The answer is obvious to those who follow what we call "directed history." The intention is likely to fund the UN as part of a final push to rationalize and perfect the initial stages of true world government. As we have written before, the movement toward world government is happening very quickly now. The ramifications are enormous and people who write off these protests as spontaneous and short-lived are not grasping what is taking place, in our humble opinion. The financial sales tax has been around for a very long time but has found its most recent voice in a column by Jerry Large of the Seattle Times. He recently gained an exclusive interview with Kalle Lasn, who sounds as if he hopes that a large protest on Oct 29th will mark the beginning of a push for such a tax. What's going on is pure one-worldism, an OWS ideology that is gradually revealing itself in dribs and drabs. It is one reason that that the OWS leaders have made no specific demands. They have hoped to create a momentu
3More

Reset The Net - Privacy Pack - 0 views

pack.resetthenet.org surveillance state digital-privacy NSA-reform Reset-the-Net
shared by Paul Merrell on 03 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • This June 5th, I pledge to take strong steps to protect my freedom from government mass surveillance. I expect the services I use to do the same.
  • Fight for the Future and Center for Rights will contact you about future campaigns. Privacy Policy
  • Paul Merrell on 03 Jun 14
     
    I wound up joining this campaign at the urging of the ACLU after checking the Privacy Policy. The Reset the Net campaign seems to be endorsed by a lot of change-oriented groups, from the ACLU to Greenpeac to the Pirate Party. A fair number of groups with a Progressive agenda, but certainly not limited to them. The right answer to that situation is to urge other groups to endorse, not to avoid the campaign. Single-issue coalition-building is all about focusing on an area of agreement rather than worrying about who you are rubbing elbows with.  I have been looking for a a bipartisan group that's tackling government surveillance issues via mass actions but has no corporate sponsors. This might be the one. The reason: Corporate types like Google have no incentive to really butt heads with the government voyeurs. They are themselves engaged in massive surveillance of their users and certainly will not carry the battle for digital privacy over to the private sector. But this *is* a battle over digital privacy and legally defining user privacy rights in the private sector is just as important as cutting back on government surveillance. As we have learned through the Snowden disclosures, what the private internet companies have, the NSA can and does get.  The big internet services successfully pushed in the U.S. for authorization to publish more numbers about how many times they pass private data to the government, but went no farther. They wanted to be able to say they did something, but there's a revolving door of staffers between NSA and the big internet companies and the internet service companies' data is an open book to the NSA.   The big internet services are not champions of their users' privacy. If they were, they would be featuring end-to-end encryption with encryption keys unique to each user and unknown to the companies.  Like some startups in Europe are doing. E.g., the Wuala.com filesync service in Switzerland (first 5 GB of storage free). Compare tha
6More

M of A - Media Neglect Turkish False Flag Attack Leak And Its Implications - 0 views

www.moonofalabama.org/...leak-and-its-implications.html war & peace Syria Turkey false-flag NATO
shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • Some more thoughts on the leaked tape from a meeting in the Turkish foreign ministry which is only very selectively reported in "western" media. A video with recorded voices and English text is available as is the seemingly complete text in two parts. The setting of the recording is this: The voices of the illegal recording believed to belong to Davutoğlu, National Intelligence Organization (MİT) Hakan Fidan, Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioğlu, and Deputy Chief of General Staff Gen. Yaşar Gürel. According to the information obtained from sources, the recording consists of a chat between four officials in Davutoğlu’s office before the commencement of the official meeting with the participation of more civil and military bureaucrats in another room at the Foreign Ministry. It is not clear when exactly the meeting happened. It would fit the situation late last year or early 2014.
  • The major points from my view: Turkey has delivered 2,000 trucks of weapons and ammunition to the insurgents in Syria. There are plans for false flag attacks on Turkey or Turkish property to justify an attack from Turkey on Syria. The Turkish military has great concerns going into and fighting Syria. The general atmosphere between these deciders is one of indecisiveness. Everyone seems to be unclear what Erdogan wants and is waiting for clear orders from above. U.S. military has shortly before the meeting presented fresh plans for a no-fly one over Syria. Then there is the fact in itself that this tape and others leaked. Internal government communication in Turkey and personal communication of Turkish official has been thoroughly compromised. This will hinder future decision making and will erode any trust Turkish government allies may have in it.
  • It is somewhat astonishing how "western" media avoid the content of the leaked tape. An AP report on it makes a lot of the youtube blocking the Turkish government ordered in reaction to the tape. Of the recording itself the AP only mentions this: The four are allegedly heard discussing a military intervention in neighboring Syria, a sensitive political issue in Turkey, although the context of the conversation is not clear. The Washington Post filed that AP report under Technology. This is an incredible disservice to its readers. The Guardian report based on Reuters is not any better: The move by the TIB came hours after an anonymous YouTube account posted a leaked audio recording allegedly of a confidential conversation between Turkish intelligence chief Hakan Fidan, foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu, undersecretary of the foreign ministry Feridun Sinirlioglu and deputy chief of the general staff, Yasar Gürel, discussing possible military action in Syria. There is no mentioning at all of the false flag attack. The Wall Street Journal comes somewhat nearer to the truth: ... a leaked recording published anonymously on the platform purported to reveal a conversation in which Turkey's foreign minister, spy chief and a top general appear to discuss how to create a pretext for a possible Turkish attack within Syria. For once kudos to the NYT which at least touches one point but leaves out the other important ones: ... the officials were heard discussing a plot to establish a justification for military strikes in Syria. One option that is said to have been discussed was orchestrating an attack on the Tomb of Suleyman Shah ... German media did not do any better.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • A NATO ally is planning a false flag attack on its own territory which would implicate NATO Article 5 and other NATO countries' forces and the media do not even touch the issue? This is ludicrous. Related to the Syria issue is another thinly sourced trial balloon, the tenth or so, by the unofficial CIA spokesperson David Ignatius in the Washington Post: The Obama administration, stung by reversals in Ukraine and Syria, appears to have decided to expand its covert program of training and assistance for the Syrian opposition, deepening U.S. involvement in that brutal and stalemated civil war. ... Details of the plan were still being debated Thursday, but its likely outlines were described by knowledgeable officials: ... It follows the list of issues that have been discussed on and on over the last three years, more CIA training for insurgents in Jordan, more weapons, maybe some MANPADs. Ignatius source is here seems to be the CIA friends in the Syrian opposition: The expanded program would “send a clear message to the Assad regime that there is no military solution to the struggle,” according to a March memo to the White House from the opposition. Assad “has no incentive to talk” now, the memo argued, because he thinks he is winning. The rationale, bluntly stated, is that to reach an eventual diplomatic settlement in Syria, it is necessary now to escalate the conflict militarily. This has been a hard pill for Obama to swallow, but prodded by the Saudis, he seems to have reached that point.
  • There are so many caveats in here - "appears to have decided", 2still being debated", "seems to have reached that point" - that I do not believe a word of it. The loudly announced, by Ignatius and others, attack on south Syria has yet to appear and the halfhearted attack by the Turkish supported Jihadists in the north seems to be stuck. I do not anticipate any bigger action by Turkey or the U.S. especially as the such action right now would likely lead to harsher reaction by Russia.
  • Paul Merrell on 30 Mar 14
     
    "A NATO ally is planning a false flag attack on its own territory which would implicate NATO Article 5 and other NATO countries' forces and the media do not even touch the issue? This is ludicrous." Beyond ludicrous. If a NATO member is attacked, all NATO nations are required by treaty to come to that nation's military aid. That Turkey is planning a false flag attack on Syria that could force us into a war deserves far more widespread news coverage.
3More

Putin facing multi-million pound legal action over alleged role in MH17 crash - Telegraph - 0 views

www.telegraph.co.uk/...lleged-role-in-MH17-crash.html Ukraine MH17 litigation Putin Russia U.S.
shared by Paul Merrell on 28 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Vladimir Putin is facing a multi-million-pound legal action for his alleged role in the shooting down of a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet over eastern Ukraine, The Sunday Telegraph can disclose. British lawyers are preparing a class action against the Russian president through the American courts. Senior Russian military commanders and politicians close to Mr Putin are also likely to become embroiled in the legal claim
  • The case would further damage relations between Mr Putin and the West, but politicians would be powerless to prevent it. Last week, lawyers from McCue & Partners, the London law firm, flew to Ukraine for discussions about how to bring the case and where it should be filed. Victims’ families will be invited to join the action. The case will inevitably highlight the role allegedly played by Russia in stoking conflict in eastern Ukraine.
  • Paul Merrell on 28 Jul 14
     
    This could be very interesting if the case is filed and Putin, et al, submit themselves to the U.S. court's jurisdiction to contest the case. Russia has released ample evidence that MH17 was shot down by the Ukraine Military. The U.S. and Ukraine, on the other hand, have issued nothing but conclusory claims that the Ukrainian separatists (and by implication, Russia) did the dirty deed. Moreover, such a defense might raise issues such as whether the Ukraine coup government was legally constituted, the separatists right to self determination of their government when faced with the coup government's military campaign to ethnically cleanse eastern Ukraine of those with Russian blood, etc.    The U.S. government, of course, would not want to see such issues aired in a trial where the truth of its claims could be disproved.  One of the hazards of dispensing Kool-Aid propaganda is that some who drink the Kool-Aid may believe and act upon it in ways that cause blowback. 
8More

U.S. Says It Spied on 89,000 Targets Last Year, But the Number Is Deceptive | Threat Le... - 0 views

www.wired.com/...foreigners-targeted-for-spying surveillance-state NSA FBI stats 2013
shared by Paul Merrell on 29 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • About 89,000 foreigners or organizations were targeted for spying under a U.S. surveillance order last year, according to a new transparency report. The report was released for the first time Friday by the Office of the Director of Intelligence, upon order of the president, in the wake of surveillance leaks by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. But the report, which covers only surveillance orders issued in 2013, doesn’t tell the whole story about how many individuals the spying targeted or how many Americans were caught in the surveillance that targeted foreigners. Civil liberties groups say the real number is likely “orders of magnitude” larger than this. “Even if it was an honest definition of ‘target’—that is, an individual instead of a group—that also is not encompassing those who are ancillary to a target and are caught up in the dragnet,” says Kurt Opsahl, deputy general counsel of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
  • The report, remarkably, shows that the government obtained just one order last year under Section 702 of FISA—which allows for bulk collection of data on foreigners—and that this one order covered 89,138 targets. But, as the report notes, “target” can refer to “an individual person, a group, an organization composed of multiple individuals or a foreign power that possesses or is likely to communicate foreign intelligence information.” Furthermore, Section 702 orders are actually certificates issued by the FISA Court that can cover surveillance of an entire facility. And since, as the government points out in its report, the government cannot know how many people use a facility, the figure only “reflects an estimate of the number of known users of particular facilities (sometimes referred to as selectors) subject to intelligence collection under those Certifications,” the report notes.
  • “If you’re actually trying to get a sense of the number of human beings affected or the number of Americans affected, the number of people affected is vastly, vastly larger,” says Julian Sanchez, senior fellow at the Cato Institute. “And how many of those are Americans is impossible to say. But [although] you may not think you are routinely communicating with foreign persons, [this] is not any kind of assurance that your communications are not part of the traffic subject to interception.” Sanchez points out that each individual targeted is likely communicating with dozens or hundred of others, whose communications will be picked up in the surveillance. “And probably a lot of these targets are not individuals but entire web sites or companies. While [a company like the Chinese firm] Huawei might be a target, thousands of emails used by thousands of employees will be swept up.” How many of those employees might be American or communicating with Americans is unknown.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Also revealed in today’s report is the number of times the government has queried the controversial phone records database it created by collecting the phone records of every subscriber from U.S. providers. According to the report, the government used 423 “selectors” to search its massive phone records database, which includes records going back to at least 2006 when the program began. A search involves querying a specific phone number or device ID that appears in the database. The government has long maintained that its collection of phone records isn’t a violation of its authority, since it only views the records of specific individuals targeted in an investigation. But such searches, even if targeted at phone numbers used by foreigners, would include calls made to and from Americans as well as calls exchanged with people two or three hops out from the targeted number.
  • In its report, the government indicated that the 423 selectors involved just 248 “known or presumed” Americans whose information was collected by the agency in the database. But Opsahl says that both of these numbers are deceptive given what we know about the database and how it’s been used. “We know it’s affecting millions of people,” he points out. But “then we have estimated numbers of affected people [that are just] in the three digits. That requires some effort [on the government's part] to find a way to do the definition of the number [in such a way] to make it as small as possible.”
  • One additional figure today’s report covers is the number of National Security Letters the government issued last year to businesses to obtain data on accountholders and users—19,212. NSLs are written demands from the FBI that compel internet service providers, credit companies, financial institutions and others to hand over confidential records about their customers, such as subscriber information, phone numbers and e-mail addresses, websites visited, and more. These letters are a powerful tool because they do not require court approval, and they come with a built-in gag order, preventing recipients from disclosing to anyone that they have received an NSL. An FBI agent looking into a possible anti-terrorism case can self-issue an NSL to a credit bureau, ISP, or phone company with only the sign-off of the Special Agent in Charge of their office. The FBI has merely to assert that the information is “relevant” to an investigation into international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.
  • The FBI has issued hundreds of thousands of NSLs over the years and has been reprimanded for abusing them. Last year a federal judge ruled that the use of NSLs is unconstitutional, due to the gag order that accompanies them, and ordered the government to stop using them. Her ruling, however, was stayed pending the government’s appeal.
  • According to the government’s report today, the 19,000 NSLs issued last year involved more than 38,000 requests for information.
11More

WASHINGTON: CIA admits it broke into Senate computers; senators call for spy chief's ou... - 0 views

www.mcclatchydc.com/...-staffers-accessed-senate.html surveillance state CIA torture Senate-Intelligence_Committee-Report Brennan
shared by Paul Merrell on 01 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • An internal CIA investigation confirmed allegations that agency personnel improperly intruded into a protected database used by Senate Intelligence Committee staff to compile a scathing report on the agency’s detention and interrogation program, prompting bipartisan outrage and at least two calls for spy chief John Brennan to resign.“This is very, very serious, and I will tell you, as a member of the committee, someone who has great respect for the CIA, I am extremely disappointed in the actions of the agents of the CIA who carried out this breach of the committee’s computers,” said Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., the committee’s vice chairman.
  • The rare display of bipartisan fury followed a three-hour private briefing by Inspector General David Buckley. His investigation revealed that five CIA employees, two lawyers and three information technology specialists improperly accessed or “caused access” to a database that only committee staff were permitted to use.Buckley’s inquiry also determined that a CIA crimes report to the Justice Department alleging that the panel staff removed classified documents from a top-secret facility without authorization was based on “inaccurate information,” according to a summary of the findings prepared for the Senate and House intelligence committees and released by the CIA.In other conclusions, Buckley found that CIA security officers conducted keyword searches of the emails of staffers of the committee’s Democratic majority _ and reviewed some of them _ and that the three CIA information technology specialists showed “a lack of candor” in interviews with Buckley’s office.
  • The inspector general’s summary did not say who may have ordered the intrusion or when senior CIA officials learned of it.Following the briefing, some senators struggled to maintain their composure over what they saw as a violation of the constitutional separation of powers between an executive branch agency and its congressional overseers.“We’re the only people watching these organizations, and if we can’t rely on the information that we’re given as being accurate, then it makes a mockery of the entire oversight function,” said Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine who caucuses with the Democrats.The findings confirmed charges by the committee chairwoman, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that the CIA intruded into the database that by agreement was to be used by her staffers compiling the report on the harsh interrogation methods used by the agency on suspected terrorists held in secret overseas prisons under the George W. Bush administration.The findings also contradicted Brennan’s denials of Feinstein’s allegations, prompting two panel members, Sens. Mark Udall, D-Colo., and Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., to demand that the spy chief resign.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Another committee member, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and some civil rights groups called for a fuller investigation. The demands clashed with a desire by President Barack Obama, other lawmakers and the CIA to move beyond the controversy over the “enhanced interrogation program” after Feinstein releases her committee’s report, which could come as soon as next weekMany members demanded that Brennan explain his earlier denial that the CIA had accessed the Senate committee database.“Director Brennan should make a very public explanation and correction of what he said,” said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. He all but accused the Justice Department of a coverup by deciding not to pursue a criminal investigation into the CIA’s intrusion.
  • “I thought there might have been information that was produced after the department reached their conclusion,” he said. “What I understand, they have all of the information which the IG has.”He hinted that the scandal goes further than the individuals cited in Buckley’s report.“I think it’s very clear that CIA people knew exactly what they were doing and either knew or should’ve known,” said Levin, adding that he thought that Buckley’s findings should be referred to the Justice Department.A person with knowledge of the issue insisted that the CIA personnel who improperly accessed the database “acted in good faith,” believing that they were empowered to do so because they believed there had been a security violation.“There was no malicious intent. They acted in good faith believing they had the legal standing to do so,” said the knowledgeable person, who asked not to be further identified because they weren’t authorized to discuss the issue publicly. “But it did not conform with the legal agreement reached with the Senate committee.”
  • Feinstein called Brennan’s apology and his decision to submit Buckley’s findings to the accountability board “positive first steps.”“This IG report corrects the record and it is my understanding that a declassified report will be made available to the public shortly,” she said in a statement.“The investigation confirmed what I said on the Senate floor in March _ CIA personnel inappropriately searched Senate Intelligence Committee computers in violation of an agreement we had reached, and I believe in violation of the constitutional separation of powers,” she said.It was not clear why Feinstein didn’t repeat her charges from March that the agency also may have broken the law and had sought to “thwart” her investigation into the CIA’s use of waterboarding, which simulates drowning, sleep deprivation and other harsh interrogation methods _ tactics denounced by many experts as torture.
  • Buckley’s findings clashed with denials by Brennan that he issued only hours after Feinstein’s blistering Senate speech.“As far as the allegations of, you know, CIA hacking into, you know, Senate computers, nothing could be further from the truth. I mean, we wouldn’t do that. I mean, that’s _ that’s just beyond the _ you know, the scope of reason in terms of what we would do,” he said in an appearance at the Council on Foreign Relations.White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest issued a strong defense of Brennan, crediting him with playing an “instrumental role” in the administration’s fight against terrorism, in launching Buckley’s investigation and in looking for ways to prevent such occurrences in the future.Earnest was asked at a news briefing whether there was a credibility issue for Brennan, given his forceful denial in March.“Not at all,” he replied, adding that Brennan had suggested the inspector general’s investigation in the first place. And, he added, Brennan had taken the further step of appointing the accountability board to review the situation and the conduct of those accused of acting improperly to “ensure that they are properly held accountable for that conduct.”
  • The allegations and the separate CIA charge that the committee staff removed classified documents from the secret CIA facility in Northern Virginia without authorization were referred to the Justice Department for investigation.The department earlier this month announced that it had found insufficient evidence on which to proceed with criminal probes into either matter “at this time.” Thursday, Justice Department officials declined comment.
  • In her speech, Feinstein asserted that her staff found the material _ known as the Panetta review, after former CIA Director Leon Panetta, who ordered it _ in the protected database and that the CIA discovered the staff had it by monitoring its computers in violation of the user agreement.The inspector general’s summary, which was prepared for the Senate and the House intelligence committees, didn’t identify the CIA personnel who had accessed the Senate’s protected database.Furthermore, it said, the CIA crimes report to the Justice Department alleging that panel staffers had removed classified materials without permission was grounded on inaccurate information. The report is believed to have been sent by the CIA’s then acting general counsel, Robert Eatinger, who was a legal adviser to the interrogation program.“The factual basis for the referral was not supported, as the author of the referral had been provided inaccurate information on which the letter was based,” said the summary, noting that the Justice Department decided not to pursue the issue.
  • Christopher Anders, senior legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union, criticized the CIA announcement, saying that “an apology isn’t enough.”“The Justice Department must refer the (CIA) inspector general’s report to a federal prosecutor for a full investigation into any crimes by CIA personnel or contractors,” said Anders.
  • Paul Merrell on 01 Aug 14
     
    And no one but the lowest ranking staffer knew anything about it, not even the CIA lawyer who made the criminal referral to the Justice Dept., alleging that the Senate Intelligence Committee had accessed classified documents it wasn't authorized to access. So the Justice Dept. announces that there's insufficient evidence to warrant a criminal investigation. As though the CIA lawyer's allegations were not based on the unlawful surveillance of the Senate Intelligence Committee's network.  Can't we just get an official announcement that Attorney General Holder has decided that there shall be a cover-up? 
7More

US v. Comprehensive Drug Testing, Inc., 621 F. 3d 1162 - Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit ... - 0 views

scholar.google.com/scholar_case surveillance-state 4th Amendment bulk-collection future-investigations
shared by Paul Merrell on 05 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • Concluding Thoughts
  • This case well illustrates both the challenges faced by modern law enforcement in retrieving information it needs to pursue and prosecute wrongdoers, and the threat to the privacy of innocent parties from a vigorous criminal investigation. At the time of Tamura, most individuals and enterprises kept records in their file cabinets or similar physical facilities. Today, the same kind of data is usually stored electronically, often far from the premises. Electronic storage facilities intermingle data, making them difficult to retrieve without a thorough understanding of the filing and classification systems used—something that can often only be determined by closely analyzing the data in a controlled environment. Tamura involved a few dozen boxes and was considered a broad seizure; but even inexpensive electronic storage media today can store the equivalent of millions of pages of information. 1176*1176 Wrongdoers and their collaborators have obvious incentives to make data difficult to find, but parties involved in lawful activities may also encrypt or compress data for entirely legitimate reasons: protection of privacy, preservation of privileged communications, warding off industrial espionage or preventing general mischief such as identity theft. Law enforcement today thus has a far more difficult, exacting and sensitive task in pursuing evidence of criminal activities than even in the relatively recent past. The legitimate need to scoop up large quantities of data, and sift through it carefully for concealed or disguised pieces of evidence, is one we've often recognized. See, e.g., United States v. Hill, 459 F.3d 966 (9th Cir.2006).
  • This pressing need of law enforcement for broad authorization to examine electronic records, so persuasively demonstrated in the introduction to the original warrant in this case, see pp. 1167-68 supra, creates a serious risk that every warrant for electronic information will become, in effect, a general warrant, rendering the Fourth Amendment irrelevant. The problem can be stated very simply: There is no way to be sure exactly what an electronic file contains without somehow examining its contents—either by opening it and looking, using specialized forensic software, keyword searching or some other such technique. But electronic files are generally found on media that also contain thousands or millions of other files among which the sought-after data may be stored or concealed. By necessity, government efforts to locate particular files will require examining a great many other files to exclude the possibility that the sought-after data are concealed there. Once a file is examined, however, the government may claim (as it did in this case) that its contents are in plain view and, if incriminating, the government can keep it. Authorization to search some computer files therefore automatically becomes authorization to search all files in the same sub-directory, and all files in an enveloping directory, a neighboring hard drive, a nearby computer or nearby storage media. Where computers are not near each other, but are connected electronically, the original search might justify examining files in computers many miles away, on a theory that incriminating electronic data could have been shuttled and concealed there.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • The advent of fast, cheap networking has made it possible to store information at remote third-party locations, where it is intermingled with that of other users. For example, many people no longer keep their email primarily on their personal computer, and instead use a web-based email provider, which stores their messages along with billions of messages from and to millions of other people. Similar services exist for photographs, slide shows, computer code and many other types of data. As a result, people now have personal data that are stored with that of innumerable strangers. Seizure of, for example, Google's email servers to look for a few incriminating messages could jeopardize the privacy of millions. It's no answer to suggest, as did the majority of the three-judge panel, that people can avoid these hazards by not storing their data electronically. To begin with, the choice about how information is stored is often made by someone other than the individuals whose privacy would be invaded by the search. Most people have no idea whether their doctor, lawyer or accountant maintains records in paper or electronic format, whether they are stored on the premises or on a server farm in Rancho Cucamonga, whether they are commingled with those of many other professionals 1177*1177 or kept entirely separate. Here, for example, the Tracey Directory contained a huge number of drug testing records, not only of the ten players for whom the government had probable cause but hundreds of other professional baseball players, thirteen other sports organizations, three unrelated sporting competitions, and a non-sports business entity—thousands of files in all, reflecting the test results of an unknown number of people, most having no relationship to professional baseball except that they had the bad luck of having their test results stored on the same computer as the baseball players.
  • Second, there are very important benefits to storing data electronically. Being able to back up the data and avoid the loss by fire, flood or earthquake is one of them. Ease of access from remote locations while traveling is another. The ability to swiftly share the data among professionals, such as sending MRIs for examination by a cancer specialist half-way around the world, can mean the difference between death and a full recovery. Electronic storage and transmission of data is no longer a peculiarity or a luxury of the very rich; it's a way of life. Government intrusions into large private databases thus have the potential to expose exceedingly sensitive information about countless individuals not implicated in any criminal activity, who might not even know that the information about them has been seized and thus can do nothing to protect their privacy. It is not surprising, then, that all three of the district judges below were severely troubled by the government's conduct in this case. Judge Mahan, for example, asked "what ever happened to the Fourth Amendment? Was it ... repealed somehow?" Judge Cooper referred to "the image of quickly and skillfully moving the cup so no one can find the pea." And Judge Illston regarded the government's tactics as "unreasonable" and found that they constituted "harassment." Judge Thomas, too, in his panel dissent, expressed frustration with the government's conduct and position, calling it a "breathtaking expansion of the `plain view' doctrine, which clearly has no application to intermingled private electronic data." Comprehensive Drug Testing, 513 F.3d at 1117.
  • Everyone's interests are best served if there are clear rules to follow that strike a fair balance between the legitimate needs of law enforcement and the right of individuals and enterprises to the privacy that is at the heart of the Fourth Amendment. Tamura has provided a workable framework for almost three decades, and might well have sufficed in this case had its teachings been followed. We have updated Tamura to apply to the daunting realities of electronic searches. We recognize the reality that over-seizing is an inherent part of the electronic search process and proceed on the assumption that, when it comes to the seizure of electronic records, this will be far more common than in the days of paper records. This calls for greater vigilance on the part of judicial officers in striking the right balance between the government's interest in law enforcement and the right of individuals to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. The process of segregating electronic data that is seizable from that which is not must not become a vehicle for the government to gain access to data which it has no probable cause to collect.
  • Paul Merrell on 05 Dec 14
     
    From a Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals en banc ruling in 2010. The Court's holding was that federal investigators had vastly overstepped the boundaries of multiple subpoenas and a search warrant --- and the Fourth Amendment --- by seizing records of a testing laboratory and reviewing them for information not described in the warrant or the subpoenas. At issue in this particular case was the government's use of a warrant that found probable cause to believe that the records contained evidence that steroids had been found in the urine of ten major league baseball players but searched the seized records for urine tests of other baseball players. The Court upheld the lower courts' rulings that the government was required to return all records other than those relevant to the ten players identified in the warrant. (The government had instead used the records of other player's urine tests to issue subpoenas for evidence relevant to those players potential use of steroids.) This decision cuts very heavily against the notion that the Fourth Amendment allows the bulk collection of private information about millions of Americans with or without a warrantor court order on the theory that some of the records *may* later become relevant to a lawful investigation.   Or rephrased, here is the en banc decision of the largest federal court of appeals (as many judges as most other federal appellate courts combined), in direct disagreement with the FISA Court orders allowing bulk collection of telephone records and bulk "incidental" collection of Americans' telephone conversations on the theory that the records *might* become relevant to national security investigations. Yet none of the FISA judges in any of the FISA opinions published thus far even cited, let alone distinguished, this Ninth Circuit en banc decision. Which says a lot of the quality of the legal research performed by the FISA Court judges. However, this precedent is front and center in briefs filed with the Ni
5More

Federal Judge Finds National Security Letters Unconstitutional, Bans Them | Threat Leve... - 0 views

www.wired.com/...nsl-found-unconstitutional surveillance state NLS gag orders 1st Amendment constitutional law
shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Ultra-secret national security letters that come with a gag order on the recipient are an unconstitutional impingement on free speech, a federal judge in California ruled in a decision released Friday. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston ordered the government to stop issuing so-called NSLs across the board, in a stunning defeat for the Obama administration’s surveillance practices. She also ordered the government to cease enforcing the gag provision in any other cases. However, she stayed her order for 90 days to give the government a chance to appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
  • “We are very pleased that the Court recognized the fatal constitutional shortcomings of the NSL statute,” said Matt Zimmerman, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed a challenge to NSLs on behalf of an unknown telecom that received an NSL in 2011. “The government’s gags have truncated the public debate on these controversial surveillance tools. Our client looks forward to the day when it can publicly discuss its experience.” The telecommunications company received the ultra-secret demand letter in 2011 from the FBI seeking information about a customer or customers. The company took the extraordinary and rare step of challenging the underlying authority of the National Security Letter, as well as the legitimacy of the gag order that came with it.
  • Illston found that although the government made a strong argument for prohibiting the recipients of NSLs from disclosing to the target of an investigation or the public the specific information being sought by an NSL, the government did not provide compelling argument that the mere fact of disclosing that an NSL was received harmed national security interests. A blanket prohibition on disclosure, she found, was overly broad and “creates too large a danger that speech is being unnecessarily restricted.” She noted that 97 percent of the more than 200,000 NSLs that have been issued by the government were issued with nondisclosure orders.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Both challenges are allowed under a federal law that governs NSLs, a power greatly expanded under the Patriot Act that allows the government to get detailed information on Americans’ finances and communications without oversight from a judge. The FBI has issued hundreds of thousands of NSLs over the years and has been reprimanded for abusing them — though almost none of the requests have been challenged by the recipients. After the telecom challenged the NSL, the Justice Department took its own extraordinary measure and sued the company, arguing in court documents that the company was violating the law by challenging its authority. The move stunned EFF at the time.
  • NSLs are written demands from the FBI that compel internet service providers, credit companies, financial institutions and others to hand over confidential records about their customers, such as subscriber information, phone numbers and e-mail addresses, websites visited and more. NSLs are a powerful tool because they do not require court approval, and they come with a built-in gag order, preventing recipients from disclosing to anyone that they have even received an NSL. An FBI agent looking into a possible anti-terrorism case can self-issue an NSL to a credit bureau, ISP or phone company with only the sign-off of the Special Agent in Charge of their office. The FBI has to merely assert that the information is “relevant” to an investigation into international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.

The Empire Takes a Hit: NSA Update - 2 views

started by Gary Edwards on 15 Jun 13 no follow-up yet
5More

Democratic Pundits Downplay Serious Ethical Issues Raised by the Clinton Foundation - 0 views

theintercept.com/...clinton-foundation-spin Auction 2016 Hillary Clinton-Foundation corruption bribery
shared by Paul Merrell on 27 Aug 16 - No Cached
  • The Associated Press story this week revealing that as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton frequently met with donors to the Clinton Foundation, set off a firestorm in the media. Many Democrats and sympathetic pundits are criticizing the article — and have made the sweeping claim that, contrary to many deeply reported investigations, there is no evidence that well-heeled backers of the foundation received favorable treatment from the State Department. While there are some legitimate criticisms of the AP story — its focus, for instance, on a Nobel Peace Prize winner meeting with Clinton distracts from the thesis of the piece — it is nonetheless a substantive investigation based on calendars that the State Department has fought to withhold from the public. The AP took the agency to court to obtain a partial release of the meeting logs. Other commentators took issue with a tweet promoting the AP piece, which they said might confuse readers because the AP story reflected private sector meetings, not overall meetings. But in challenging the overall credibility of the AP story, Clinton surrogates and allies are going well beyond a reasoned critique in an effort to downplay the serious ethical issues raised by Clinton Foundation activities.
  • The assertions above obscure the problems unearthed through years of investigative reporting on the foundation. Journalist David Sirota, who has reported extensively on the Clinton Foundation, rounded up a sample of the stories that provide a window into Clinton Foundation issues: The Washington Post found that two months after Secretary Clinton encouraged the Russian government to approve a $3.7 billion deal with Boeing, the aerospace company announced a $900,000 donation to the Clinton Foundation. The Wall Street Journal found that Clinton made an “unusual intervention” to announce a legal settlement with UBS, after which the Swiss bank increased its donations to, and involvement with, the Clinton Foundation. The New York Times reported that a Russian company assumed control of major uranium reserves in a deal that required State Department approval, as the chairman of the company involved in the transaction donated $2.35 million to the Clinton Foundation.
  • The Intercept has also reported on the Clinton Foundation and the conduct of the State Department under Clinton. Leaked government documents obtained by The Intercept revealed that the Moroccan government lobbied Clinton aggressively to influence her and other officials on the Moroccan military occupation of Western Sahara, which holds some of the world’s largest reserves of phosphate, a lucrative export for the kingdom. As part of its strategy for influence, the Moroccan government and companies controlled by the kingdom donated to the Bill Clinton presidential library, the Clinton Foundation, and hired individuals associated with the Clinton political network. Despite a statement by the Obama administration that suggested it would reverse the previous Bush administration support for the Moroccan government and would back a U.N.-negotiated settlement for the conflict in Western Sahara, Clinton announced there would be “no change” in policy — and has gone on to praise the Moroccan government’s human rights record. As recently as Monday, we learned that after being denied an official meeting with the State Department, Peabody Energy, the worlds largest coal company, used a consultant who donated heavily to the Clinton Foundation to back channel and attempt to set up a meeting with Clinton via her aide Huma Abedin. The consultant, Joyce Aboussie, wrote that “It should go without saying that the Peabody folks” reached out to her because of her “relationship with the Clinton’s [sic].” Peabody and Aboussie have declined to comment, and it is unclear if the meeting took place.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • There may be many other potential influence-peddling stories, but the State Department has not released all of the emails from Clinton’s private server and other meeting log documents, while redacting identifying information that could shed light on other stories. For example, Mother Jones and The Intercept have reported that Clinton used the State Department to promote fracking development across the globe, and in particular her agency acted to benefit particular companies such as a Chevron project in Bulgaria and ExxonMobil’s efforts in Poland. Both ExxonMobil and Chevron are major donors to the Clinton Foundation. The release of more meeting log documents and emails would certainly reveal a better picture of potential influence.
  • Earlier this year, in similar fashion to the questions raised about the Clinton Foundation, Democrats in Arizona raised influence peddling concerns regarding the reported $1 million donation from the Saudi Arabian government to the McCain Institute for International Leadership, a nonprofit group closely affiliated with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. As chairman of the Armed Services Committee, McCain oversees a range of issues concerning Saudi Arabia, including arms sales. But none of the pundits rushing to the defense of the Clinton Foundation defended McCain. In fact, the more Clinton’s allies have worked to defend big money donations to the Clinton Foundation, the more closely they resemble the right-wing principles they once denounced. In one telling argument in defense of the Clinton Foundation, Media Matters, another group run by David Brock, argued this week that there was “no evidence of ethics breaches” because there was no explicit quid pro quo cited by the AP. The Media Matters piece mocked press figures for focusing on the “optics” of corruption surrounding the foundation. Such a standard is quite a reversal for the group. In a piece published by Media Matters only two years ago, the organization criticized conservatives for focusing only on quid pro quo corruption — the legal standard used to decide the Citizens United and McCutcheon Supreme Court decisions — calling such a narrow focus a “new perspective of campaign finance” that dismisses “concerns about institutional corruption in politics.” The piece notes that ethics laws concerning the role of money in politics follow a standard, set forth since the Watergate scandal, in which even the appearance, or in other words, the “optics” of corruption, is cause for concern.
1More

Tea Party Community Organizers? - 2 views

news.google.com/?ar=1375483947 Tea-Party-Patriots Precinct-Activism
shared by Gary Edwards on 02 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 02 Aug 13
     
    Tea Party Precinct Workers Needed: http://goo.gl/8u9wAI Republican Community Organizers? Or are they really libertarian infiltrators posturing as repubicans :) Interesting discussion at The Tea Party.org. Here is my comment concerning "fragmentation" and third party participation. And yes, I have registered to become a precinct worker on behalf of the Republican Party Libertarian Caucus movement. I've also listed myself in a number of local County Sheriff activities. It's getting real that matters :) ................... Fragmentation is an issue. Which is exactly why the core set of principles must be very limited. IMHO, restoring the founding documents and principles; the American Republic, the Constitution and the principles so famously described in the Declaration of Independence are the single point of agreement that defines "America". The founding documents created a Republic based on "individual liberty". So it would seem that the concept and value of "individual liberty" would be the single "lowest common denominator" that all Americans can rally around. Stray from the Constitution and Declaration, and you will have arguments that divide and defeat. Stay on point, arguing the value and importance of "individual liberty" and it becomes very hard to wander from the importance of limiting government, and protecting individual rights to privacy, property and prosperity. I've been very successful at arguing that a socialist can not honestly take the oath of office, oath of citizenship, or pledge of allegiance. The socialist believes that the rights and liberty of the individual is subordinate to the needs of society. For the socialist, there is no such thing as individual liberty or inalienable rights. They are un-Constitutional and un-American to the core of their being. For the libertarian, an ordered society based on limited government and the Rule of Law, is the best guarantor of effective and meaningful "individual liberty". The ess
‹ Previous 21 - 40 of 1286 Next › Last »
Showing 20▼ items per page