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Paul Merrell

Let's check James Comey's Bush years record before he becomes FBI director | Laura Murp... - 0 views

  • Comey is lionised in DC for one challenge over liberties. Yet he backed waterboarding, wire-tapping and indefinite detention
  • It had the air of Hollywood. On the night of 10 March 2004, James Comey, the nominee to lead the FBI for the next ten years, rushed to the hospital bedside of his terribly ill boss, Attorney General John Ashcroft.There, he eventually confronted White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, who were trying to get the pancreatitis-stricken Ashcroft to renew a still secret and illegal surveillance program on Americans' electronic communications. Neither Ashcroft nor Comey, then acting attorney general because of Ashcroft's condition, would reauthorize the program. When Gonzales authorized the program to go forward without a Justice Department certification, Comey threatened to resign, along with his staff and FBI Director Robert Mueller.The threats worked: President Bush blinked, and Comey won modifications to the secret surveillance program that he felt brought it into compliance with the law. This event, now the stuff of DC legend, has solidified Comey's reputation as a "civil liberties superhero", in the words of CNN's Jake Tapper, and may be one of the reasons President Obama nominated him Friday to be the next director of the FBI.
  • There's one very big problem with describing Comey as some sort of civil libertarian: some facts suggest otherwise. While Comey deserves credit for stopping an illegal spying program in dramatic fashion, he also approved or defended some of the worst abuses of the Bush administration during his time as deputy attorney general. Those included torture, warrantless wiretapping, and indefinite detention.On 30 December 2004, a memo addressed to James Comey was issued that superseded the infamous memo that defined torture as pain "equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure". The memo to Comey seemed to renounce torture but did nothing of the sort. The key sentence in the opinion is tucked away in footnote 8. It concludes that the new Comey memo did not change the authorizations of interrogation tactics in any earlier memos.In short, the memo Comey that approved gave a thumbs-up on waterboarding, wall slams, and other forms of torture – all violations of domestic and international law.
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  • Then, there's warrantless wiretapping. Many media reports describe that Comey's defiant stand at Ashcroft's bedside was in opposition to the warrantless wiretapping of Americans international communications. But we simply do not know exactly what Comey opposed, or why or what reforms he believed brought the secret program within the rule of law. We do, however, know that Comey was read into the program in January 2004.While, to his credit, he immediately began raising concerns, the program was still in existence when the New York Times exposed it in December 2005. This was a year and a half after Comey's hospital showdown with Gonzales and Card. In fact, the warrantless wiretapping program was supported by a May 2004 legal opinion (pdf) produced by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel and signed off by Comey, which replaced the 2001 legal opinion Comey had problems with.This, of course, raises the question: just what illegal surveillance program did Comey oppose so much he would resign over it? Last weekend, the Washington Post provided a new theory: the Marina program, which collects internet metadata. Now, the Senate has an opportunity to end the theorizing and find out what exactly Comey objected to. It's a line of questioning that senators should focus doggedly on, in light of the recent revelations in the Post and the Guardian.
  • The final stain on Comey's record was his full-throated defense of the indefinite military detention of an American citizen arrested on American soil. In a June 2004 press conference, Comey told of Jose Padilla, an alleged al-Qaida member accused of plotting to detonate a dirty bomb as well as blow up apartment buildings in an American city. By working for al-Qaida, Padilla, Comey argued, could be deprived of a lawyer and indefinitely detained as an enemy combatant on a military brig off the South Carolina coast for the purpose of extracting intelligence out of him. It turned out that Padilla was never charged with the list of crimes and criminal associations pinned on him by Comey that day. When Padilla was finally convicted – in a federal court – in August 2007, it wasn't for plotting dirty bomb attacks or blowing up apartment buildings. Rather, he was convicted of material support of terrorism overseas. During his indefinite military detention, Padilla was tortured.
  • Everyone has a backstory, and the confirmation process should ensure the American public hears all relevant background information, both good and bad, when Comey appears before the Senate. Senators should insist that Comey explain his role during the Bush era and repudiate policies he endorsed on torture, indefinite detention, and illegal surveillance.The new FBI director will be around for the next decade. We need one who will respect the constitution and the rule of law; not one who will use discredited and illegal activities in the name of justice and safety.
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    Comey's not right for the FBI directorship this time around. The nation needs an FBI Director and Comey's role in government surveillance, torture, warrantless wiretapping, extraordinary rendition, and indefinite detention of a U.S. citizen. That's too much to get sorted out any time soon given the government shroud of secrecy on those topics. 
Paul Merrell

Congress thwarts Obama on bill allowing 9/11 lawsuits against Saudi Arabia - The Washin... - 0 views

  • Congress voted to decisively overturn President Obama’s veto of a controversial 9/11 victims bill Wednesday, the first override of his presidency and a sharp setback for longtime U.S. ally Saudi Arabia. The bill clears the way for families of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to file claims against Saudi Arabia for the kingdom’s long-rumored but unproven links to the 9/11 attackers. The Saudi government has consistently rejected those allegations. The overwhelming vote to override — 97 to 1 in the Senate and 348 to 77 in the House — reflects the extent to which Saudi influence in Washington has waned. And it comes just over a month before an election that makes it nearly impossible politically to oppose legislation long sought by thousands of aggrieved American families.
  • The measure amended the 1976 Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act to allow for lawsuits against foreign nations in federal court if it is determined that they played a role in terrorist attacks that killed Americans on U.S. soil.
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    Note that the legislation applies to all foreign nations, not just the Saudis, and that it covers all acts of terrorism on American soil. Perhaps the lawsuits against Israel for 9-11 will now begin to roll? Defense Secretary Ash Carter said just before Congress overrode the veto that the legislation would endanger U.S. secrets. Yup. Mossad's 9-11 co-conspirators in U.S. government might also be flushed out in such legislation. On Carter's statements, see http://www.mintpressnews.com/defense-secretary-says-jasta-would-lead-to-public-disclosure-of-american-secrets/220912/
Paul Merrell

Iraqi Widows' Numbers Have Grown, but Aid Lags - The New York Times - 0 views

  • The problem is that widows do not make appealing brides, say the women themselves and nongovernmental organizations that assist them.“Maybe a young woman with only one or two kids can marry again,” Ms. Khalaf said with a sigh; she has six children. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Widows are not a new social problem in Iraq, of course. The war with Iran in the 1980s left tens of thousands of women widowed. Each new calamity that followed created more: the 1991 war with the United States, the failed Shiite uprising that followed, the repressions against Kurds.
  • And the numbers of widows in Iraq, or as American aid programs prefer to call them, “female heads of households,” increased substantially after the invasion in 2003 and in the years of violence that followed.The Iraqi Ministry of Planning estimates that about 9 percent of the country’s women, or about 900,000, are widows. A separate government agency, the Ministry of Women, issued a statement in June putting the figure at one million.Other groups also have estimated the number of women widowed during the nearly nine-year war, which is drawing to an official close with the last American soldiers scheduled to leave in December.
  • A United Nations report estimated that at the peak of the sectarian violence in 2006, nearly 100 women were widowed each day. The Ministry of Social Affairs pays widow’s benefits to 86,000 women, most of whom, it says, lost their husbands in the latest war.This figure corresponds with conservative estimates of 103,000 to 113,000 Iraqi deaths in the war, according to a nonprofit group that tallies casualties, Iraq Body Count. The count includes the estimated 10,000 Iraqi soldiers who died in the initial American-led invasion and 10,125 police officers and soldiers who died afterward in fighting with insurgents, along with those killed in sectarian violence.
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  • Confronted with so many widows, the Iraqi government is providing only minimal assistance, equivalent to about $80 a month to those widowed in the recent conflict. Advertisement Continue reading the main story “We expected we would get a lot of help from all sides, the Americans, the Iraqi government,” Ms. Khalaf, who lost her husband in 2007, said in an interview in her trailer. “But the fact is, nobody really cares about us.”The rusting trailer camp, across from a car lot, represents a social challenge that is not easily remedied — not least because the gender imbalance makes it exceedingly unlikely most widows will remarry.
  • Some American-financed projects have sought to help widows become self-sufficient economically, with some success, according to program reports. A United States Agency for International Development program offers small grants to female heads of households, for example. They can use the money to open small businesses like beauty salons or catering services. Program administrators say many recipients not only have improved their lives materially, but have overcome depression.
  • At times, war widows became symbols for opponents of the American military presence in Iraq. When an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at President George W. Bush in 2008, he shouted that he was doing so on behalf of the war’s widows and orphans. Politicians have recruited widows to appear at political rallies. But a half a dozen widows interviewed at the trailer camp said, most of all, they would like to remarry, however unlikely.
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    From November 24, 2011.
Gary Edwards

Terrorism: A Matrix of Lies and Deceit - Christopher Black - 0 views

  • Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto, he is a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada and he is known for a number of high-profile cases involving human rights and war crimes, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
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    "Terrorism: A Matrix of Lies and Deceit - Good catch of a very interesting article from Marbux! Christopher Black (NEO) : So how is your war on "terrorism" going? I'm not doing too well at it since I have no idea who the enemy is. Like the American black comedian, Dick Gregory, who, on hearing that President Johnson had declared a war on poverty, ran out onto the street with a hand grenade to throw it at some poor people, I have no idea who the real enemy is, who to throw a grenade at. That makes me think. We are told, the world over, by every government, that we are in a "war against terrorism." But terrorism is an action, a tactic, a strategy. It's a method not person, a group, a country. How can there be a war against a method of war. But they want us to fight a method and never ask the why or the who. That doesn't seem to matter anymore. They tell us not to be concerned with why something happens, only how it happens. Let's face it, the Americans, with all the creative skills of Madison Avenue, have got us all to use a phrase that George Bush first used in 2001after the strange event in New York that has all the indicia of a state attack on its own people to justify the invasions of Afghanistan and then Iraq. It has become a euphemism and a justification for all the wars they have waged since. The people don't need to know why "terrorists" exist, or who they are and what motivates them, or even whether they really exist, for they are just "terrorists." Sometimes the war is against a "regime" that is "terrorising" its own people according to the "responsibility to protect" mafia that act as the chorus to the principal players in this theatre, as was done to Yugoslavia and Libya; or a regime that "terrorises the world", as we saw with Iraq. Sometimes the war is a phony war against 'terrorists" who are really mercenary forces fighting for the USA and its allies. We see this in Syria. We have seen it used agai
Paul Merrell

Trump Plan to Gut Stream Protections Imperils Tap Water of 117 Million Americans | EWG - 0 views

  • The Trump administration is threatening to remove safeguards that protect the drinking water of more than one-third of Americans. Some 117 million people get at least some of their drinking water from small streams.[1] For 72 million people in 1,033 counties, more than half of their drinking water comes from small streams. Ensuring that their water is safe means keeping the water in these streams clean. (See map below. Click here for a more detailed interactive map.)
  • Right now, the Clean Water Act protects these streams from pollution. But this week President Trump issued an executive order directing Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt to rescind or revise the Clean Water Rule, or replace it with a new rule. This critically important rule determines which streams, rivers and lakes are protected from pollution by the Clean Water Act. The rule also extends protection for millions of acres of wetlands that filter drinking water. Industry and agribusiness have been pushing for years to roll back the Clean Water Rule and protect only the biggest streams and rivers. Now they’ve found a friend in the Trump administration. Small streams are where big rivers start, and the best science confirms that dirty streams means even dirtier rivers. Millions of Americans drink water directly connected to 234,000 miles of small, potentially unprotected streams. In 21 different states, small streams provide drinking water for 1 million or more people. (See chart below.) More than 5 million people in each New York, Texas and Pennsylvania get drinking water from small streams, as do more than 3 million in each California, Georgia, Maryland, Ohio, North Carolina and Arizona.
  • President Trump’s executive order immediately threatens drinking water for millions of Americans, but it’s not the only threat. Dozens of lawsuits seeking to gut the Clean Water Rule have been filed by industry and agribusiness, and states catering to those interests. Congress could meddle with the Clean Water Act itself to deny protection to small streams and wetlands. The Clean Water Rule is a common-sense safeguard supported by a majority of Americans. It is supported by many cities and towns that depend on unpolluted drinking water sources and natural infrastructure like wetlands to filter pollutants and absorb floodwaters. Small businesses that rely on clean water and healthy wildlife habitats, such as craft breweries and outdoor recreation companies, also strongly support the Clean Water Rule. Undermining, weakening or rescinding this vital rule is a gift to corporate polluters and Big Ag, and a threat to public health and the environment.
Gary Edwards

Obama Stimulus Dollars Funded Soros Empire | The Soros Files - 1 views

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    excerpt: Newly recently released tax documents reveal how billionaire "philanthropist" George Soros expanded his U.S.-based empire by using funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the Obama stimulus. Soros and Obama worked hand-in-glove through the stimulus, which has been called the largest single partisan wealth transfer in American history. In 2010, tax records show that Soros, a convicted inside trader with extensive knowledge of the American financial system and government policies under Obama, deployed grantees from his Open Society Foundations1 to lobby for and acquire federal contracts for job training, green energy, and community redevelopment programs.  By gaining control over those resources, Soros advanced his agenda for "green economics," open borders, and increased government handouts. In short, he grew his empire, which includes much of the "progressive" movement in the U.S., as the federal government and Obama's political constituencies grew in power and influence. This report analyzes George Soros's grants to organizations in 2010.  The records show massive coordination of non-profit networks in the states and nationally.  Four powerful organizations and coalitions - The STAR Coalition, The Gamaliel Foundation, the Apollo Alliance, and Green for All - are given detailed scrutiny in this regard, with the involvement of Van Jones getting special mention. Jones is the former Obama "Green Jobs Czar" fired after information about his communist past surfaced through the work of anti-communist blogger Trevor Loudon and then-Fox News personality Glenn Beck.  The lobbying power of such efforts ensured that stimulus funds flowed from taxpayers into union coffers and into the hands of other activists who had been instrumental in putting President Obama into office. This report, "Obama Stimulus Dollars Funded Soros Empire," includes an analysis of how Soros-funded organizations and networks
Gary Edwards

J.P. Morgan Chase's Ugly Family Secrets Revealed | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone - 0 views

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    Socialist blogger and Rolling Stone Magazine journalist Matt Taibi has made a career out of exposing Banksters and their criminal activities causing the 2008 collapse of the global financial industry.  Here he sights a story in American Banker that fully demonstrates the depths of depravity and criminal activities that continues to characterize big Banksters. The mortgage-foreclosure-robo signing scandal is just the tip of the ice berg.  Matt recounts the story of Linda Almonte, a JP Morgan Chase employee in charge of Credit Card debt bundling.  It's horrific. Money shot: The financial crash wouldn't have happened if even a slim plurality of financial executives had done what Linda Almonte did, i.e. simply refuse to sign off on a bogus transaction. If companies had merely upheld their own stated policies and stayed within the ballpark of the law, none of these messes could have accumulated: fraudulent mortgages wouldn't have been sold, families wouldn't have been foreclosed upon based on robo-signed documentation, investors wouldn't have been duped into buying huge packets of "misrepresented assets." ............. excerpt: In a story that should be getting lots of attention, American Banker has released an excellent and disturbing exposé of J.P. Morgan Chase's credit card services division, relying on multiple current and former Chase employees. One of them, Linda Almonte, is a whistleblower whom I've known since last September; I'm working on a recount of her story for my next book. One of the things we were promised by the lawmakers who passed the Dodd-Frank reform bill a few years back is that this would be a new era for whistleblowers who come forward to tell the world about problems in our financial infrastructure. This story now looms as a test case for that proposition. American Banker reporter Jeff Horwitz did an outstanding job in this story detailing the sweeping irregularities in-house at Chase, but his very thoroughness means the news may have ram
Gary Edwards

Executive Doomsday Order: Obama Authorizes Gov to Seize Farms, Food, Processing Plants,... - 1 views

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    Good summary of the most recent and entirely un-Constitutional act of definace and tyranny.  Keep in mind that Obama does not have the authority to suspend or alter any natural rights, especially those specifically protected by the Constitution from any and all branches of the federal government.  Nor does Congress have the authority to grant that power.  There is only one way to alter the Constitution, and that is through an onerous amendment process requiring the approval of 2/3 rds the States. Recall also that in 1798, the passage of the Alien & Sedition Act similarly sought to compromise the Constitution and reatly expand the authority of the Feds.  Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, and James Madison, author of the Constitution, fought and defeated the A&S Act by going directly to the State Legislatures to force their US Senators to repeal the A&S Act.  This worked extremely well; but that was before the 17th Amendment separated US Senators from their State Legislatures. Still, i think the approach holds.  I suggest we petition the State Legislatures to declare these Executive Orders and Martial Law Congressional authorizations Un-Constitutional; taking the arguments directly to the Supreme Court.  Immediately. excerpt: As of March 16, 2012, your land, your food, your water and your abilities as a laborer are now a wholly owned subsidiary of the United States government at any time they choose to initiate the provisions of this order, which according to the order itself, can be during an emergency or a non-emergency. While some reports indicate that the general impact of this new executive order is negligible, when considered with the broader implications including the  introduction and passage of laws allowing for the indefinite detention of American citizens without charge or trial, restricting the general assembly of individuals to protest, the establishment of an internet 'kill switch' contingency plan and jamming
Gary Edwards

Walter E. Williams: States should nullify Obamacare [AUDIO] | The Daily Caller - 0 views

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    Interesting discussion by Walter Williams as guest host for Rush Limbaugh.  Walter points to the 1798 Jefferson-Madison "Kentucky Resolution" and, the Marbury v Madison ruling as the legal rational for States to oppose and nullify the Supreme Court Obamacare Tax. Many Conservatives erroneously blame the Kentucky Resolution for being the pretext of the Southern States defending their sovereignty by succeeding from the Union following the election of Lincoln in 1860.  My read is that Jefferson and Madison both saw the States as having the final say on the Constitutionality of any Federal action - be it Congress, Justice or Executive branch.  Marbury v. Madison seems to fully justify the Jefferson-Madison view of the Constitution and State Sovereignty.   Note that Jefferson and Madison were responding to the reprehensible Federalist "Alien and Sedition Act". excerpt: On Rush Limbaugh's Thursday program, George Mason University professor Walter E. Williams outlined the case that states can nullify Obamacare, citing Thomas Jefferson's 1789 Kentucky Resolution, which was a claim that the U. S. Constitution is a compact among the several states, and any power not delegated to the U.S. government is void. "I think the American citizens ought to press their state governors and legislatures just to nullify the law - just to plain nullify it and say, 'The citizens of such-and-such-a state don't have to obey Obamacare because it's unconstitutional, regardless of what the Supreme Court says,'" Williams said. Williams cited Marbury v. Madison, which said "all laws which are repugnant to the Constitution are null and void" to further the case for nullification from the states. Nullification is a doctrine introduced in the infancy of the United States and was what some have suggested led to the Civil War. As far as the legal precedent of nullification and how it led to the Civil War, Williams said he doubted the repercussions would as serious as the
Gary Edwards

Can Americans Escape the Deception? - 0 views

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    I've been reading Paul Craig Roberts since high school, when i used to clip his backpage columns in NewsWeek magazine. These days, you have to go to his blog to get the truth. But what a truth it is! Incredible, forceful but presented only as PCR can do. His wake up call to America is not about Republicans or Democrats. It's about our liberty and the all out assault our government, socialist and conservatives alike, has launched on the Constitution. Amerika! This is what it comes to. It's also why i'm a libertarian. Read it and weep. Excerpt is from the 9/11 section. excerpt: In a real investigation, the 9/11 evidence would not have been illegally destroyed, and the investigation would have been conducted by experts, not by government agencies assigned a cover-up and by political hacks. The NIST report is abject nonsense. It explains nothing. It is a fabricated computer simulation of a non-event. The co-chairmen and legal counsel of the 9/11 Commission later wrote books in which they stated that information was withheld from the commission, the military lied to the commission, and the commission "was set up to fail." Yet, these astounding admissions by the leaders of the 9/11 Commission had no impact on Congress, the presstitute media, or the public. All heads were in the sand. Please, whatever you do, don't make us emotional weaklings face the facts. More than one hundred firefighters, police, first responders, and building maintenance personnel report hearing and experiencing scores of explosions in the twin towers, including powerful explosions in the sub-basements prior to the collapse of the towers. Distinguished scientists, authors of many peer-reviewed scientific papers, report finding unreacted nano-thermite in the dust from the towers, tested it for its explosive and high-heat producing ability, and reported the unequivocal results. Seventeen hundred architects and engineers have testified in a petition to Congress that the th
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    For a detailed and fully referenced study of how 9-11 Commission Executive Director Philip Zelikow's conflict of interest and how he kept Commission members in the dark and sabotaged the Commission report, see http://tinyurl.com/6tdfc56
Gary Edwards

Robosigning Credit Cards: The Next Major Bank Scandal? | The Reformed Broker - 0 views

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    This article is definately a "must read".  The summary is that the credit card debt mess is far worse than the mortgage foreclosure mess.  The Banksters are guilty of massive illegal activities in foreclosure gate, including forging documents and signatures.  Apparently the same thing has happened with Credit Card Debt Collection!!!! excerpt:   From American Banker: "If sloppy record keeping and problems with false affidavits is a problem with mortgages, it's 100 times bigger in credit card accounts," says Michelle Weinberg of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago. Worse than mortgages, even? Let's just review the mortgage situation: Robosigning consists of blatantly illegal practices in which banks and mortgage companies had their employees sign affidavits and other documents without verifying the information therein; forge signatures on documents; backdate documents; falsely notarize documents; create new documents to replace missing ones; or some combination of all the above. Did I mention that all of this is illegal? Contrary to what the banks would have you believe, robosigning was not a one-off - it happened on a systematic level. So much so that some of the nation's largest banks (including Bank of America Corp. and  JPMorgan Chase & Co., ) were forced to halt foreclosures to "review" these practices in late 2010. The companies that did this claimed that they had to cut corners because they couldn't keep up with all of the paperwork created by the housing boom last decade. But we now know that this is not true - there's evidence that robo-signing goes back all the way to at least 1998. This all means that thousands of Americans were foreclosed upon erroneously and that even homebuyers and sellers in good standing may be unable to prove their rightful ownership. The problem is so big that Sheila Bair, the former head of the FDIC, acknowledged that they don't even know how big it is. It's so big that the b
Gary Edwards

Constitutional Expert: "President Obama … Says That He Can Kill You On His Ow... - 0 views

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    Chilling stuff; Constitutional Legal Expert Jonathan Turley explains Obama's claim that he can assassinate any American at any time.  Obama claims that congressional authorizations, the International rules of war and the international right to self-defense give him a legal basis for suspending the Bill of Rights at will, detaining citizens indefinitely without charges, and killing based on his own suspicions.  Incredible..... excerpt: It's even worse than coming into your house. President Obama has just stated a policy that he can have any American citizen killed without any charge, without any review, except his own. If he's satisfied that you are a terrorist, he says that he can kill you anywhere in the world including in the United States.   Two of his aides just were just at a panel two weeks ago and they reaffirmed they believe that American citizens can be killed on the order of the President anywhere including the United States.   You've now got a president who says that he can kill you on his own discretion. He can jail you indefinitely on his own discretion   ***   I don't think the the Framers ever anticipated that. They assumed that people would hold their liberties close, and that they wouldn't relax those fingers ...
Paul Merrell

Putin calls Kerry a liar on Syria - 0 views

  • Things aren't exactly warming up between the Obama administration and Vladimir Putin, even as President Obama arrived in St. Petersburg for the G-20 summit.Putin called Obama Secretary of State John Kerry a liar over Kerry's testimony this week before Congress.
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    I'm glad that someone is saying it.  "Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them." - Mark Twain (1835-1910), American author and satirist   "Lying and war are always associated. Listen closely when you hear a war-maker try to defend his current war: If he moves his lips he's lying." - Philip Berrigan (1923-2002), American peace activist and former Roman Catholic priest   "If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged."  - Noam Chomsky
Paul Merrell

How Many Americans Does The N.S.A. Spy On? A Lot of Them : The New Yorker - 0 views

  • but reading the new documents, which include a secret FISA court order that amounts to a gift certificate for one year of warrant-free spying, it becomes clear that many more “United States persons” have their communications monitored, and on much vaguer grounds, than the Obama Administration has acknowledged. “What I can say unequivocally is that, if you are a U.S. person, the N.S.A. cannot listen to your telephone calls, and the N.S.A. cannot target your e-mails,” the President said earlier this week. A 2009 memorandum signed by Eric Holder establishes a broader criteria, referring to people “reasonably believed” to be located abroad. That reasonable belief, as it turns out, can be quite shaky. Among the information that the N.S.A. is told to use includes having had a phone or e-mail connection with a person “associated with a foreign power or foreign territory,” or being in the “‘buddy list’ or address book” of such a person. It won’t be lost on anyone that Americans whose families include recent immigrants will be disproportionately vulnerable to such intrusions. (So, incidentally, will journalists.) The defaults in the analysis are telling: a person
  • whose location is unknown, will not be treated as a United States person unless such person can be positively identified as such, or the nature or circumstances of the person’s give rise to a reasonable belief that such person is a United States person. (The extent to which the N.S.A. can spy on a wide range of foreigners is its own, important discussion.) The criteria also show the interaction of various N.S.A. programs: the Administration has defended the collection of telephony metadata by saying that if it ever produces an interesting match, investigators would have to go to court to get a proper warrant to look more closely. But metadata is mentioned in these documents as a basis for picking a target for the surveillance under what appears to be a blanket FISA order—not an individualized one.
  • And what happens when the N.S.A. realizes that it is reading and listening to an American’s communications? It is supposed to stop, at least until it gets a different kind of FISA order—which, based on what it has already heard, may be all the easier. And if it finds something that is interesting in any one of a half-dozen ways, it can analyze the communications further, and hold on to them for five years. Maybe an American’s e-mails contain “significant foreign intelligence information”; or maybe they don’t, but are “reasonably believed” to contain evidence of a crime. There are a lot of crimes on the books, and the N.S.A. is also allowed to count one it thinks might be “about to be committed.” It can also “disseminate” the information to other agencies, and find out more about the American if it seems that the person might have access to secrets, or be a target of foreigners, or just do business with them. This includes communications between someone under indictment and his or her lawyer—the words can’t be used in a prosecution, but can be to gather intelligence. And what the N.S.A. happens to see can also be used in leak investigations. Does this still seem too narrow, not enough to keep us all safe? The documents note that the private data of Americans that the N.S.A. can hold on to “include electronic communications acquired because of limitations on NSA’S ability to filter communications.” In other words, if it fails to fine-tune its targeting, it can keep what it sweeps up anyway. Also, if the N.S.A. decides on its own that there is an “immediate threat,” it can temporarily put all these minimization procedures aside and figure it out later.
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  • These documents were classified: they shouldn’t have been. The N.S.A. can look for certain secrets and keep them. But Americans shouldn’t have to listen to the President with an ear for what words like “targeted” really mean. (Even by that standard, the Administration has not been forthright.) We get to know what the rules are—so we, and not just a secret court, can tell when they are being broken.
Gary Edwards

NONE DARE CALL IT CONSPIRACY  by Gary Allen - 1 views

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    "NONE DARE CALL IT CONSPIRACY" - Web Version Copyright © 1971 by Gary Allen with Larry Abraham  ISBN: 0899666612 Sourced INTRODUCTION 1. DON'T CONFUSE ME WITH FACTS 2. SOCIALISM - ROYAL ROAD TO POWER FOR THE SUPER-RICH 3. THE MONEY MANIPULATORS 4. BANKROLLING THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION 5. ESTABLISHING THE ESTABLISHMENT 6. THE ROCKEFELLERS AND THE REDS 7. PRESSURE FROM ABOVE AND PRESSURE FROM BELOW 8. YOU ARE THE ANSWER     FOURTEEN SIGNPOSTS TO SLAVERY     WHAT WILL YOU DO?     MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS NOMINATED AND APPOINTED BY PRESIDENT NIXON TO GOVERNMENT POSTS     OPERATION COUNTERATTACK WHAT THOSE "IN THE KNOW" SAY I wish that every citizen of every country in the free world and every slave behind the Iron Curtain might read this book. Ezra Taft Benson - Former Secretary of Agriculture NDCC is an admirable job of amassing information to prove that communism is socialism and socialism (a plot to enslave the world) is not a movement of the downtrodden but a scheme supported and directed by the wealthiest of people. If enough Americans read and act upon NDCC, they really can save the Republic from the conspirators - whose plans for the destruction of our country are galloping fast toward completion. Dan Smoot - Former Assistant to J. Edgar Hoover Now that NDCC is available, I no longer need to answer "no" to the question which is often put to me, namely: "Mr. Dodd, is there a book which I can read so I can know what you know?" No higher praise is possible for this book. Norman Dodd - Chief Investigator Reece Committee to Investigate Foundations This book concerns the way in which our nation and other nations are actually governed. As Benjamin Disaeli said, this is not the way in which most people think nations are governed. The whole subject of the Insiders who so largely control our political and economic lives is a fascinating mystery. For the reader who is intelligent but uninitiated in the literature of super
Gary Edwards

Details you need to fight Sustainable Development and Agenda 21 Marxism - 0 views

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    Excellent discussion explaining the connection between local planning boards, Sustainable Development, the UN's Agenda 21, and New World Order Marxism. excerpt: "The Sustainablists will always claim that planning has been with us throughout history and this is nothing new. However, the fact is, older planning groups like the American Planning Association, which had a history in old style planning and zoning, has adopted the Sustainable Development agenda while trying to pretend it hasn't. The fact is,  APA's policy is no different than that brought on by the UN's International Council on Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI).     For proof of this, visit Plannersnetwork.org (of which the APA is a part) and look at its Statement of Principles. This revealing quote will be found: "We believe planning should be a tool for allocating resources…and eliminating the great inequalities of wealth and power in our society…because the free market has proven incapable of doing this."   That is the philosophy under which the APA operates. It advocates social justice and anti-capitalism as part of its purpose in enforcing planning.   Agenda 21 is divided into three parts (Economic, Equity and Environment). The "Three Es." Equity is Social Justice. The issue of social justice is the key to understanding Agenda 21 and Sustainable Development. It is the heart of the policy. The environmental concern is a convenient excuse to sacrifice liberty. The economic concern - Public/Private Partnerships is the direct elimination of capitalism through the fascist policy of partnerships between government and business. Social Justice is the redistribution of wealth, which is key to understanding Sustainable Development and specifically to understand what is meant by the Plannersnetwork.org quote above.   Connecting the American Planning Association to Agenda 21:While the APA consistently denies any UN or Agenda 21 connection to its planning programs, recently we f
Paul Merrell

Republican Party Calls For End To NSA Domestic Phone Records Program | TIME.com - 0 views

  • In the latest indication of a growing libertarian wing of the GOP, the Republican National Committee passed a resolution Friday calling for an investigation into the “gross infringement” of Americans’ rights by National Security Agency programs that were revealed by Edward Snowden. The resolution also calls on on Republican members of Congress to enact amendments to the Section 215 law that currently allows the spy agency to collect records of almost every domestic telephone call. The amendment should make clear that “blanket surveillance of the Internet activity, phone records and correspondence — electronic, physical, and otherwise — of any person residing in the U.S. is prohibited by law and that violations can be reviewed in adversarial proceedings before a public court,” the resolution reads.
  • The measure, the “Resolution to Renounce the National Security Agency’s Surveillance Program,” passed by an “overwhelming majority” by voice vote, along with resolutions calling for the repeal of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act and reaffirming the party’s pro-life stance, according to Reince Priebus, the RNC chairman. Among other points, the resolution declares “the mass collection and retention of personal data is in itself contrary to the right of privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution,” a claim embraced by civil libertarians of both parties. The revelation of the NSA programs has caused deepened a rift within the Republican Party between national security hawks and libertarians, but at the meeting, no RNC member rose to speak against the resolution.
  • WHEREAS, the mass collection and retention of personal data is in itself contrary to the right of privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution, which guarantees the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, that warrants shall issue only upon probable cause, and generally prevents the American government from issuing modern-day writs of assistance; WHEREAS, unwarranted government surveillance is an intrusion on basic human rights that threatens the very foundations of a democratic society and this program represents a gross infringement of the freedom of association and the right to privacy and goes far beyond even the permissive limits set by the Patriot Act; and WHEREAS, Republican House Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, an author of the Patriot Act and Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee at the time of Section 215′s passage, called the Section 215 surveillance program “an abuse of that law,” writing that, “based on the scope of the released order, both the administration and the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) court are relying on an unbounded interpretation of the act that Congress never intended,” therefore be it
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  • The full text of the resolution as given to TIME follows below: Resolution to Renounce the National Security Agency’s Surveillance Program WHEREAS, the secret surveillance program called PRISM targets, among other things, the surveillance of U.S. citizens on a vast scale and monitors searching habits of virtually every American on the internet; WHEREAS, this dragnet program is, as far as we know, the largest surveillance effort ever launched by a democratic government against its own citizens, consisting of the mass acquisition of Americans’ call details encompassing all wireless and landline subscribers of the country’s three largest phone companies; WHEREAS, every time an American citizen makes a phone call, the NSA gets a record of the location, the number called, the time of the call and the length of the conversation, all of which are an invasion into the personal lives of American citizens that violates the right of free speech and association afforded by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution;
  • RESOLVED, the Republican National Committee encourages Republican lawmakers to enact legislation to amend Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, the state secrets privilege, and the FISA Amendments Act to make it clear that blanket surveillance of the Internet activity, phone records and correspondence — electronic, physical, and otherwise — of any person residing in the U.S. is prohibited by law and that violations can be reviewed in adversarial proceedings before a public court; RESOLVED, the Republican National Committee encourages Republican lawmakers to call for a special committee to investigate, report, and reveal to the public the extent of this domestic spying and the committee should create specific recommendations for legal and regulatory reform ot end unconstitutional surveillance as well as hold accountable those public officials who are found to be responsible for this unconstitutional surveillance; and
  • RESOLVED, the Republican National Committee encourages Republican lawmakers to immediately take action to halt current unconstitutional surveillance programs and provide a full public accounting of the NSA’s data collection programs.
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    That's more like it! Notice that the call is for a "special committee to investigate," etc., not the House Intelligence Committee chaired by Mike Rogers.  Note also the call for heads to roll.
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    Something messed up in the quoting of the resolution. Please go to the linked web site for the resolution's full text.
Paul Merrell

Victory! Federal Court Recognizes Constitutional Rights of Americans on the No-Fly List... - 0 views

  • A federal court took a critically important step late yesterday towards placing a check on the government's secretive No-Fly List. In a 38-page ruling in Latif v. Holder, the ACLU's challenge to the No-Fly List, U.S. District Court Judge Anna Brown recognized that the Constitution applies when the government bans Americans from the skies. She also asked for more information about the current process for getting off the list, to inform her decision on whether that procedure violates the Fifth Amendment guarantee of due process. We represent 13 Americans, including four military veterans, who are blacklisted from flying. At oral argument in June on motions for partial summary judgment, we asked the court to find that the government violated our clients' Fifth Amendment right to due process by barring them from flying over U.S. airspace – and smearing them as suspected terrorists – without giving them any after-the-fact explanation or a hearing at which to clear their names. The court's opinion recognizes – for the first time – that inclusion on the No-Fly List is a draconian sanction that severely impacts peoples' constitutionally-protected liberties. It rejected the government's argument that No-Fly list placement was merely a restriction on the most "convenient" means of international travel.
  • Such an argument ignores the numerous reasons an individual may have for wanting or needing to travel overseas quickly such as for the birth of a child, the death of a loved one, a business opportunity, or a religious obligation. According to the court, placement on the No-Fly List is like the revocation of a passport because both actions severely burden the right to international travel and give rise to a constitutional right to procedural due process: Here it is undisputed that inclusion on the No-Fly List completely bans listed persons from boarding commercial flights to or from the United States or over United States air space.  Thus, Plaintiffs have shown their placement on the No-Fly List has in the past and will in the future severely restrict Plaintiffs' ability to travel internationally. Moreover, the realistic implications of being on the No-Fly List are potentially far-reaching. For example, TSC [the Terrorist Screening Center] shares watchlist information with 22 foreign governments and United States Customs and Boarder [sic] Protection makes recommendations to ship captains as to whether a passenger poses a risk to transportation security, which can result in further interference with an individual's ability to travel as evidenced by some Plaintiffs' experiences as they attempted to travel abroad by boat and land and were either turned away or completed their journey only after an extraordinary amount of time, expense, and difficulty. Accordingly, the Court concludes on this record that Plaintiffs have a constitutionally-protected liberty interest in traveling internationally by air, which is affected by being placed on the list. The court also found that the government's inclusion of our clients on the No-Fly List smeared them as suspected terrorists and altered their ability to lawfully board planes, resulting in injury to another constitutionally-protected right: freedom from reputational harm.
  • The importance of these rulings is clear. Because inclusion on the No-Fly List harms our clients' liberty interests in travel and reputation, due process requires the government to provide them an explanation and a hearing to correct the mistakes that led to their inclusion. But under the government's "Glomar" policy, it refuses to provide any information confirming or denying that our clients are on the list, let alone an after-the-fact explanation and hearing. The court has asked the ACLU and the government for more information about the No-Fly List redress procedure to help it decide the ultimate question of whether that system violates the Fifth Amendment right to due process. We are confident the court will recognize that the government's "Glomar" policy of refusing even to confirm or deny our clients' No-Fly List status (much less actually providing the reasons for their inclusion in the list) is fundamentally unfair and unconstitutional.
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    A case decision in August that I had missed, right here in Oregon. One of our Oregon federal judges gets it right after being reversed the first time by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. I've read the opinion. Looks quite solid. Plaintiffs were carefully chosen for this test case, 13 citizens placed on the no-fly list, all with compelling stories of winding up stranded, some overseas. Several are U.S. military veterans. All were told by government officials that the reason they could not board was because they were on the TSA no-fly list. At issue is whether they have a right to be informed of the information that resulted in them being placed on the no-fly list and a right to a hearing to seek correction of the information. Their constitutional interest in their reputations is also in play, since they have been classified by their government as too dangerous to allow to travel by commercial airline.   The district court case is not done; the judge has ordered further briefing on some issues. But the government is trying to defend a process in which no one is ever formally notified that they are on the no-fly list and is never advised of the reasons they are on the no-fly list. The number of Americans on the no-fly list is now over 700,000. But the judge has recognized that there is a constitutional right to travel and that it extends to international travel. From the opinion: "Plaintiffs contend the government has deprived them of their protected liberty interest in travel. In Kent v. Dulles, 357 U.S. 116 (1958), the Supreme Court held "[t]he right to travel is part of the 'liberty' of which the citizen cannot be deprived without due process of law under the Fifth Amendment."  Id. at 125. As noted by the Ninth Circuit, "the [Supreme] Court has consistently treated the right to international travel as a liberty interest that is protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment." DeNieva v. Reyes, 966 F.2d 480, 485 (9th Cir. 1992)(emp
Paul Merrell

T h e L i b e r t a r i a n: Is US public opinion on Israel shifting? - 0 views

  • A recent public opinion poll asked Americans which of two options they would favour if a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict was no longer on the table. (It is in the rhetoric of leaders and diplomats but not in reality.) The two options were: The continuation of Israel’s Jewish majority [presumably this assumes permanent Israeli occupation of the West Bank and continuing ethnic cleansing of it by stealth] even if it means that Palestinians will not have citizenship and full rights. One democratic state for all in which Jews and Arabs would be equal.   Only 24 per cent supported the continuation of things as they are.
  •  According to the poll,  65 per cent of those asked for their opinion preferred the one-state option. What explains this? Is it that an apparent majority of Americans are at last understanding and supporting the need and rights of the Palestinians for justice, or is it something else – an indication that while they are not much concerned about the rights of the Palestinians, an apparent majority of Americans are fed up with an Israel they rightly perceive to be the obstacle to peace?
  • Whatever the reason for it – empathy with the Palestinian claim for justice or not – a significant shift in American public opinion really does seem to be underway. Staying with Gideon Levy’s analogy, this might explain why President Obama felt free enough to suggest to occupation addict Netanyahu that he and Israel should consider rehab.
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  • We do not know whether or not Obama had the balls to say this to Netanyahu face to face, but even if he didn’t, Netanyahu would still have got the message. Akiva Eldar’s interpretation of Obama’s message to Netanyahu via Goldberg was that he, the president, “is sick and tired of fighting on Netanyahu’s behalf vis-a-vis the Europeans and automatically vetoing (in the UN Security Council) their proposals condemning the settlements”.
  • Obama did so in an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg for “Bloomberg View“ shortly before he received Netanyahu in the White House. Obama’s message to Netanyahu via Goldberg included the statement that “There is a limit to the power of the man who bears the title leader of the free world.”
  • And he explained what he meant with these words. “If Israel sees no peace deal and continued aggressive settlement construction,” and “if Palestinians come to believe that the possibility of a contiguous sovereign Palestinian state is no longer within reach, then our ability to manage the international fallout is going to be limited.”
  •  But there was more to Obama’s message than that. He was effectively saying that if Israel continues to be opposed to peace on terms the Palestinians can accept, no occupant of the White House will be able to protect Israel from the tightening noose of isolation and sanctions.
  • Note In a most remarkable article for Haaretz on 7 March (“If I were an American Jew, I’d worry about Israel’s racist cancer”), Daniel Blatman, a history professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, called on American Jews to end their silence “and cooperate with the shrinking groups of Israelis who have not yet lost hope that it’s possible to stop this downslide towards the abyss.”
Paul Merrell

Netanyahu: Peace talks require at least another year | The Times of Israel - 0 views

  • etting to a peace agreement with the Palestinians would take at least another year of negotiations, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in remarks aired Sunday, while promising that Jerusalem will not give up its “security and national needs” in any deal
  • Netanyahu said a framework deal being drafted by the Americans, which he recently said will only represent Washington’s positions, could offer “a possible path to advance the talks.” But a final status deal would still be a long way off. “It will take at least a year to see the talks through to their conclusion,” he said, adding that the Palestinians may reject the American framework plan.
  • A sign of the pressure Netanyahu is under to show his commitment to the talks came in a rebuke-filled interview US President Barack Obama gave to Bloomberg, in which he denounced continued settlement construction, warned that the US might no longer be able to protect Israel in the international arena, and predicted that “the window is closing for a peace deal.” According to the interviewer, columnist Jeffrey Goldberg, Obama was prepared to tell Netanyahu at the White House meeting on Monday last week that if the Israeli prime minister failed to endorse the framework document for the peace talks, Israel “could face a bleak future — one of international isolation and demographic disaster.” Netanyahu downplayed the significance of the US president’s remarks. “I don’t get disappointed or insulted. If I did I wouldn’t be able to function, and I’m already serving my ninth year [as PM],” he said. He also pointed to distinctly more upbeat rhetoric from the US president during their White House meeting.
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  • “The things President Obama said at the beginning of our meeting in the White House, and then during the meeting, were remarkably different. So the question is what’s preferable: To have a critical interview and a positive meeting, or the other way around? I prefer the positive meeting,” he said. Asked if the politics of Israel’s ruling coalition, which includes parties vocally opposed to any deal that sees an Israeli withdrawal from any part of the West Bank, would be an obstacle to accepting the American framework proposal, Netanyahu rejected the idea. “I don’t think so. People understand that when entering the negotiations, Israel is holding to its positions. [The framework proposal] is a document, not a signed agreement, but will be an American document with American positions. The Americans are saying, ‘Look, this is a platform over which you can start to debate.’” The current nine-month round of talks agreed to by both sides is slated to end by late April. US Secretary of State John Kerry has called for the talks to continue after that deadline.
  • During the interview, Netanyahu refused to reject outright a new settlement construction freeze or unilateral withdrawal, though he noted these measures were unsuccessful in the past. Regarding the freeze, he noted “we’ve already done a freeze” in 2010. “Did it deliver anything? I don’t see the point. “I haven’t agreed or committed to pass a decision on a freeze,” he said. “I don’t think it serves a purpose.” Speaking to Channel 2 in remarks aired Friday, Netanyahu said Israel would have to give up some settlements in a future peace deal. “Of course some of the settlements won’t be part of the deal, everyone understands that,” Netanyahu said. “I will make sure that [number] is as limited as possible, if we get there.” He pledged that no Israeli would be “abandoned.” He also argued against – but refused to outright reject, despite prodding from interviewer Chico Menashe – a unilateral withdrawal similar to the 2005 Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip. “I prefer not to reach such possibilities, but to advance in negotiations. So far, unilateralism hasn’t proven itself. It didn’t create stability and security, but rather [brought about] Iran’s capture of every tract we left. We haven’t gotten anything good from this, only a lot of rockets.”
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    According to Bibi, Obama did not deliver the message he said he would the day before his meeting with Bibi. But with two liars involved in a secret conversation, who knows what was said?
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