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Paul Merrell

FBI Now Holding Up Michael Horowitz' Investigation into the DEA | emptywheel - 0 views

www.emptywheel.net/...itz-investigation-into-the-dea

surveillance state DEA FBI IG-investigation phone-databases

shared by Paul Merrell on 27 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • Man, at some point Congress is going to have to declare the FBI legally contemptuous and throw them in jail. They continue to refuse to cooperate with DOJ’s Inspector General, as they have been for basically 5 years. But in Michael Horowitz’ latest complaint to Congress, he adds a new spin: FBI is not only obstructing his investigation of the FBI’s management impaired surveillance, now FBI is obstructing his investigation of DEA’s management impaired surveillance. I first reported on DOJ IG’s investigation into DEA’s dragnet databases last April. At that point, the only dragnet we knew about was Hemisphere, which DEA uses to obtain years of phone records as well as location data and other details, before it them parallel constructs that data out of a defendant’s reach.
  • But since then, we’ve learned of what the government claims to be another database — that used to identify Shantia Hassanshahi in an Iranian sanctions case. After some delay, the government revealed that this was another dragnet, including just international calls. It claims that this database was suspended in September 2013 (around the time Hemisphere became public) and that it is no longer obtaining bulk records for it. According to the latest installment of Michael Horowitz’ complaints about FBI obstruction, he tried to obtain records on the DEA databases on November 20, 2014 (of note, during the period when the government was still refusing to tell even Judge Rudolph Contreras what the database implicating Hassanshahi was). FBI slow-walked production, but promised to provide everything to Horowitz by February 13, 2015. FBI has decided it has to keep reviewing the emails in question to see if there is grand jury, Title III electronic surveillance, and Fair Credit Reporting Act materials, which are the same categories of stuff FBI has refused in the past. So Horowitz is pointing to the language tied to DOJ’s appropriations for FY 2015 which (basically) defunded FBI obstruction. Only FBI continues to obstruct.
  • There’s one more question about this. As noted, this investigation is supposed to be about DEA’s databases. We’ve already seen that FBI uses Hemisphere (when I asked FBI for comment in advance of this February 4, 2014 article on FBI obstinance, Hemisphere was the one thing they refused all comment on). And obviously, FBI access another DEA database to go after Hassanshahi. So that may be the only reason why Horowitz needs the FBI’s cooperation to investigate the DEA’s dragnets. Plus, assuming FBI is parallel constructing these dragnets just like DEA is, I can understand why they’d want to withhold grand jury information, which would make that clear. Still, I can’t help but wonder — as I have in the past — whether these dragnets are all connected, a constantly moving shell game. That might explain why FBI is so intent on obstructing Horowitz again.
  • Paul Merrell on 27 Feb 15
     
    Marcy Wheeler's specuiulation that various government databases simply move to another agency when they're brought to light is not without precedent. When Congress shut down DARPA's Total Information Awareness program, most of its software programs and databases were just moved to NSA. 
Gary Edwards

Clinton Articles of Impeachment - Senate Votes - 1 views

law2.umkc.edu/...senatevotes.html

impeachment articles-of-impeachment

shared by Gary Edwards on 29 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 29 Oct 12
     
    "Article One: In his conduct while President of the United States, William Jefferson Clinton, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has willfully corrupted and manipulated the judicial process of the United States for his personal gain and exoneration, impeding the administra tion of justice, in that: On August 17, 1998, William Jefferson Clinton swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth before a Federal grand jury of the United States. Contrary to that oath, William Jefferson Clinton willfully provided perjurious, false and misleading testimony to the grand jury concerning one or more of the following: (1) the nature and details of his relationship with a subordinate Government employee; (2) prior perjurious, false and misleading testimony he gave in a Federal civil rights action brought against him; (3) prior false and misleading statements he allowed his attorney to make to a Federal judge in that civil rights action; and (4) his corrupt efforts to influence the testimony of witnesses and to impede the discovery of evidence in that civil rights action. In doing this, William Jefferson Clinton has undermined the integrity of his office, has brought disrepute on the Presidency, has betrayed his trust as President, and has acted in a manner subversive of the rule of law and justice, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore, William Jefferson Clinton, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States. Article Two: Obstruction of Justice .. In his conduct while President of the United States, William Jefferson Clinton, in viola
Gary Edwards

Articles of Impeachment Against Obama - 0 views

blackrepublican.blogspot.com/...an-citizens-file-articles.html

Impeachment articles-of-impeachment

shared by Gary Edwards on 16 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 16 Aug 13
     
    Sarasota, FL ( August 12, 2013) - The National Black Republican Association (NBRA) based in Sarasota, FL, headed by Chairman Frances Rice, filed Articles of Impeachment against President Barack Obama with the following language.   We, black American citizens, in order to free ourselves and our fellow citizens from governmental tyranny, do herewith submit these Articles of Impeachment to Congress for the removal of President Barack H. Obama, aka, Barry Soetoro, from office for his attack on liberty and commission of egregious acts of despotism that constitute high crimes and misdemeanors.   On July 4, 1776, the founders of our nation declared their independence from governmental tyranny and reaffirmed their faith in independence with the ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791.   Asserting their right to break free from the tyranny of a nation that denied them the civil liberties that are our birthright, the founders declared:   "When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."  -  Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.   THE IMPEACHMENT POWER   Article II, Section IV of the United States Constitution provides: "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."   THE ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT   In his conduct of the office of President of the United States, Barack H. Obama, aka Barry Soetoro, personally and through his subordinates and agents, in violation or disregard of the constitutional rights of citizens and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has prevented, obstructed, and impeded the administration of justice, in that:   ARTICL
Paul Merrell

NYPD Blows Whistle on New Hillary Emails: Money Laundering, Sex Crimes with Children, C... - 1 views

www.blacklistednews.com/...M.html

Auction 2016 Hillary-emails FBI NYPD Huma Weiner sex-crimes perjury Clinton-Foundation money-laundering obstruction

shared by Paul Merrell on 03 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • New York Police Department detectives and prosecutors working an alleged underage sexting case against former Congressman Anthony Weiner have turned over a newly-found laptop he shared with wife Huma Abedin to the FBI with enough evidence “to put Hillary (Clinton) and her crew away for life,” NYPD sources told True Pundit. NYPD sources said Clinton’s “crew” also included several unnamed yet implicated members of Congress in addition to her aides and insiders. The NYPD seized the computer from Weiner during a search warrant and detectives discovered a trove of over 500,000 emails to and from Hillary Clinton, Abedin and other insiders during her tenure as secretary of state. The content of those emails sparked the FBI to reopen its defunct email investigation into Clinton on Friday.
  • But new revelations on the contents of that laptop, according to law enforcement sources, implicate the Democratic presidential candidate, her subordinates, and even select elected officials in far more alleged serious crimes than mishandling classified and top secret emails, sources said. NYPD sources said these new emails include evidence linking Clinton herself and associates to: Money laundering Child exploitation Sex crimes with minors (children) Perjury Pay to play through Clinton Foundation Obstruction of justice Other felony crimes NYPD detectives and a NYPD Chief, the department’s highest rank under Commissioner, said openly that if the FBI and Justice Department fail to garner timely indictments against Clinton and co- conspirators, NYPD will go public with the damaging emails now in the hands of FBI Director James Comey and many FBI field offices. “What’s in the emails is staggering and as a father, it turned my stomach,” the NYPD Chief said. “There is not going to be any Houdini-like escape from what we found. We have copies of everything. We will ship them to Wikileaks or I will personally hold my own press conference if it comes to that.”
  • The NYPD Chief said once Comey saw the alarming contents of the emails he was forced to reopen a criminal probe against Clinton. “People are going to prison,” he said. Meanwhile, FBI sources said Abedin and Weiner were cooperating with federal agents, who have taken over the non-sexting portions the case from NYPD. The husband-and-wife Clinton insiders  are both shopping for separate immunity deals, sources said. “If they don’t cooperate they are going to see long sentences,” a federal law enforcement source said. NYPD sources said Weiner or Abedin stored all the emails in a massive Microsoft Outlook program on the laptop. The emails implicate other current and former members of Congress and one high-ranking Democratic Senator as having possibly engaged in criminal activity too, sources said. Prosecutors in the office of US Attorney Preet Bharara have issued a subpoena for Weiner’s cell phones and travel records, law enforcement sources confirmed. NYPD said it planned to order the same phone and travel records on Clinton and Abedin, however, the FBI said it was in the process of requesting the identical records. Law enforcement sources are particularly interested in cell phone activity and travel to the Bahamas, U.S. Virgin Islands and other locations that sources would not divulge.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • The new emails contain travel documents and itineraries indicating Hillary Clinton, President Bill Clinton, Weiner and multiple members of Congress and other government officials accompanied convicted pedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein on his Boeing 727 on multiple occasions to his private island in the U.S Virgin Islands, sources said. Epstein’s island has also been dubbed Orgy Island or Sex Slave Island where Epstein allegedly pimps out underage girls and boys to international dignitaries. Both NYPD and FBI sources confirm based on the new emails they now believe Hillary Clinton traveled as Epstein’s guest on at least six occasions, probably more when all the evidence is combed, sources said. Bill Clinton, it has been confirmed in media reports spanning recent years, that he too traveled with Epstein over 20 times to the island.
  • According to other uncovered emails, Abedin and Clinton both sent and received thousands of classified and top secret documents to personal email accounts including Weiner’s unsecured campaign web site which is managed by Democratic political consultants in Washington D.C. Weiner maintained little known email accounts that the couple shared on the website anthonyweiner.com. Weiner, a former seven-term Democratic Congressman from New York, primarily used that domain to campaign for Congress and for his failed mayoral bid of New York City. At one point, FBI sources said, Abedin and Clinton’s classified and top secret State Department documents and emails were stored in Weiner’s email on a server shared with a dog grooming service and a western Canadian bicycle shop. However, Weiner and Abedin, who is Hillary Clinton’s closest personal aide, weren’t the only people with access to the Weiner’s email account. Potentially dozens of unknown individuals had access to Abedin’s sensitive State Department emails that were stored in Weiner’s email account, FBI sources confirmed. FEC records show Weiner paid more than $92,000 of congressional campaign funds to Anne Lewis Strategies LLC to manage his email and web site. According to FBI sources, the D.C.-based political consulting firm has served as the official administrator of the anthonyweiner.com domain since 2010, the same time Abedin was working at the State Department. This means technically Weiner and Abedin’s emails, including top secret State Department emails, could have been accessed, printed, discussed, leaked, or distributed by untold numbers of personnel at the Anne Lewis consulting firm because they can control where the website and it emails are pointed, FBI sources said.
  • According to FBI sources, the bureau’s newly-minted probe into Clinton’s use and handling of emails while she served as secretary of state, has also been broadened to include investigating new email-related revelations, including: Abedin forwarded classified and top secret State Department emails to Weiner’s email Abedin stored emails, containing government secrets, in a special folder shared with Weiner warehousing over 500,000 archived State Department emails. Weiner had access to these classified and top secret documents without proper security clearance to view the records Abedin also used a personal yahoo address and her Clintonemail.com address to send/receive/store classified and top secret documents A private consultant managed Weiner’s site for the last six years, including three years when Clinton was secretary of state, and therefore, had full access to all emails as the domain’s listed registrant and administrator via Whois email contacts. Because Weiner’s campaign website is managed by the third-party consultant and political email guru, FBI agents are burdened with the task of trying to decipher just how many people had access to Weiner’s server and emails and who were these people. Or if the server was ever compromised by hackers, or other actors.
  • Abedin told FBI agents in an April interview that she didn’t know how to consistently print documents or emails from her secure Dept. of State system. Instead, she would forward the sensitive emails to her yahoo, Clintonemail.com and her email linked to Weiner. Abedin said, according to FBI documents, she would then access those email accounts via webmail from an unclassified computer system at the State Dept. and print the documents, many of which were classified and top secret, from the largely unprotected webmail portals. Clinton did not have a computer in her office on Mahogany Row at the State Dept. so she was not able to read timely intelligence unless it was printed out for her, Abedin said. Abedin also said Clinton could not operate the secure State Dept. fax machine installed in her Chappaqua, NY home without assistance. Perhaps more alarming, according to the FBI’s 302 Report detailing its interview with Abedin, none of the multiple FBI agents and Justice Department officials who conducted the interview pressed Abedin to further detail the email address linked to Weiner. There was never a follow up, according to the 302 report. But now, all that has changed, with the FBI’s decision to reopen the Clinton email investigation and the husband and wife seeking immunity deals to testify against Clinton and other associates about the contents of the laptop’s emails.
  • Gary Edwards on 03 Nov 16
     
    "New York Police Department detectives and prosecutors working an alleged underage sexting case against former Congressman Anthony Weiner have turned over a newly-found laptop he shared with wife Huma Abedin to the FBI with enough evidence "to put Hillary (Clinton) and her crew away for life," NYPD sources told True Pundit. NYPD sources said Clinton's "crew" also included several unnamed yet implicated members of Congress in addition to her aides and insiders. The NYPD seized the computer from Weiner during a search warrant and detectives discovered a trove of over 500,000 emails to and from Hillary Clinton, Abedin and other insiders during her tenure as secretary of state. The content of those emails sparked the FBI to reopen its defunct email investigation into Clinton on Friday. But new revelations on the contents of that laptop, according to law enforcement sources, implicate the Democratic presidential candidate, her subordinates, and even select elected officials in far more alleged serious crimes than mishandling classified and top secret emails, sources said. NYPD sources said these new emails include evidence linking Clinton herself and associates to: Money laundering Child exploitation Sex crimes with minors (children) Perjury Pay to play through Clinton Foundation Obstruction of justice Other felony crimes NYPD detectives and a NYPD Chief, the department's highest rank under Commissioner, said openly that if the FBI and Justice Department fail to garner timely indictments against Clinton and co- conspirators, NYPD will go public with the damaging emails now in the hands of FBI Director James Comey and many FBI field offices. "What's in the emails is staggering and as a father, it turned my stomach," the NYPD Chief said. "There is not going to be any Houdini-like escape from what we found. We have copies of everything. We will ship them to Wikileaks or I will personally hold my own press conference if it comes to that." The NYPD
Gary Edwards

Comey has Long History of Cases Ending Favorable to Clintons - Tea Party News - 0 views

www.teaparty.org/ding-favorable-clintons-174947

Clinton Hillary

shared by Gary Edwards on 09 Jul 16 - No Cached
  • Messages found stored on Clinton’s private email server show that Berger – a convicted thief of classified documents – had been advising Clinton while she served as secretary of state and had access to emails containing classified information. For example, in an email dated Sept. 22, 2009, Berger advised Clinton advised how she could leverage information to make Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu more cooperative in discussions with the Obama administration over a settlement freeze.
  • Law firm ties Berger, Lynch, Mills Berger worked as a partner in the Washington law firm Hogan & Hartson from 1973 to 1977, before taking a position as the deputy director of policy planning at the State Department in the Carter administration. When Carter lost his re-election bid, Berger returned to Hogan & Hartson, where he worked until he took leave in 1988 to act as foreign policy adviser in Gov. Michael Dukakis’ presidential campaign. When Dukakis was defeated, Berger returned to Hogan & Hartson until he became foreign policy adviser for Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign in 1992. On March 28, WND reported Lynch was a litigation partner for eight years at Hogan & Hartson, from March 2002 through April 2010. Mills also worked at Hogan & Hartson, for two years, starting in 1990, before she joined then President-elect Bill Clinton’s transition team, on her way to securing a position as White House deputy counsel in the Clinton administration. According to documents Hillary Clinton’s first presidential campaign made public in 2008, Hogan & Hartson’s New York-based partner Howard Topaz was the tax lawyer who filed income tax returns for Bill and Hillary Clinton beginning in 2004. In addition, Hogan & Hartson in Virginia filed a patent trademark request on May 19, 2004, for Denver-based MX Logic Inc., the computer software firm that developed the email encryption system used to manage Clinton’s private email server beginning in July 2013. A tech expert has observed that employees of MX Logic could have had access to all the emails that went through her account.
  • In 1999, President Bill Clinton nominated Lynch for the first of her two terms as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, a position she held until she joined Hogan & Hartson in March 2002 to become a partner in the firm’s Litigation Practice Group. She left Hogan & Hartson in 2010, after being nominated by President Obama for her second term as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, a position she held until Obama nominated her to serve in her current position as attorney general. A report published April 8, 2008, by The American Lawyer noted Hogan & Hartson was among Hillary Clinton’s biggest financial supporters in the legal industry during her first presidential campaign. “Firm lawyers and staff have donated nearly $123,400 to her campaign so far, according to campaign contribution data from the Center for Responsive Politics,” Nate Raymond observed in The American Lawyer article. “Christine Varney, a partner in Hogan’s Washington, D.C., office, served as chief counsel to the Clinton-Gore Campaign in 1992.” While there is no evidence that Lynch played a direct role either in the tax work done by the firm for the Clintons or in linking Hillary’s private email server to MX Logic, the ethics of the legal profession hold all partners jointly liable for the actions of other partners in a business. “If Hogan and Hartson previously represented the Clintons on tax matters, it is incumbent upon U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch to [disclose] what, if any, role she had in such tax matters,” said Tom Fitton, president of Washington-based Judicial Watch.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • HSBC link When Lynch’s nomination as attorney general was considered by the Senate one year ago, as WND reported, the Senate Judiciary Committee examined her role in the Obama administration’s decision not to prosecute the banking giant HSBC for laundering funds for Mexican drug cartels and Middle Eastern terrorists. WND was first to report in a series of articles beginning in 2012 money-laundering charges brought by John Cruz, a former HSBC vice president and relationship manager, based on his more than 1,000 pages of evidence and secret audio recordings. The staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee focused on Cruz’s allegations that Lynch, acting then in her capacity as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, engaged in a Department of Justice cover-up. Obama’s attorney general nominee allowed HSBC in December 2011 to enter into a “deferred prosecution” settlement in which the bank agreed to pay a $1.9 billion fine and admit “willful criminal conduct” in exchange for dropping criminal investigations and prosecutions of HSBC directors or employees. Cruz called the $1.92 billion fine the U.S. government imposed on HSBC “a joke” and filed a $10 million lawsuit for “retaliation and wrongful termination.” From 2002 to 2003, Comey held the position of U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, the same position held by Lynch. On March 4, 2013, he joined the HSBC board of directors, agreeing to serve as an independent non-executive director and a member of the bank’s Financial System Vulnerabilities Committee, positions he held until he resigned on Aug. 3, 2013, to become head of the FBI.
  • Comey, Fitzgerald and Valerie Plame On Jan. 1, 2004, the Washington Post reported that after Attorney General John Aschroft recused himself and his staff from any involvement in the investigation of who leaked the name of CIA employee Valerie Plame after journalist Robert Novak named her in print as a CIA operative, Comey assumed the role of acting attorney general for the purposes of the investigation. Comey appointed Patrick J. Fitzgerald, a U.S. attorney in Chicago, to act as special counsel in conducting the inquiry into what became known as “Plamegate.” At the time Comey made the appointment, Fitzgerald was already godfather to one of Comey’s children. On April 13, 2015, co-authoring a USA Today op-ed piece, Plame and her husband, retired ambassador Joseph Wilson, made public their support for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, openly acknowledging their political closeness to both Hillary and Bill Clinton. The first two paragraphs of the editorial read: We have known Hillary Clinton both professionally and personally for close to 20 years, dating back to before President Bill Clinton’s first trip to Africa in 1998 — a trip that they both acknowledge changed their lives, and gave considerable meaning to their post-White House years and to the activities of the Clinton Foundation. Joe, serving as the National Security Council Senior Director for African Affairs, was instrumental in arranging that historic visit. Our history became entwined with Hillary further after Valerie’s identity as a CIA officer was deliberately exposed. That criminal act was taken in retribution for Joe’s article in The New York Times in which he explained he had discovered no basis for the Bush administration’s justification for the Iraq War that Saddam Hussein was seeking yellowcake uranium to develop a nuclear weapon.
  • In January 2016, Chuck Ross in the Daily Caller reported that Hillary Clinton emails made public made clear that one of her “most frequent favor-seekers when she was secretary of state was former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a longtime Clinton friend, an endorser of Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, and an Africa expert with deep business ties on the continent.” Ross noted that Wilson emailed Clinton on Dec. 22, 2009, seeking help for Symbion Power, an American engineering contractor for whom Wilson consulted, in the company’s bid to pursue a U.S. Agency of International Development contract for work in Afghanistan. In the case of the Afghanistan project, Ross noted, Clinton vouched for Wilson and Symbion as she forwarded the request to Jack Lew, who served then as deputy secretary of state for management and resources. Ross further reported Wilson’s request might also have been discussed with President Obama, as one email indicates. In 2005, Fitzgerald prosecuted Libby, a prominent adviser to then Vice President Dick Cheney, in the Plame investigation, charging him with two counts of perjury, two counts of making false statements to federal prosecutors and one count of obstruction of justice. On March 6, 2007, Libby was convicted of four of the five counts, and on June 5, 2007, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton to two and a half years in federal prison. On April 6, 2015, the Wall Street Journal reported the publication of New York Times reporter Judith Miller’s memoir “The Story: A Reporter’s Journey” exposed “unscrupulous conduct” by Fitzgerald in the 2007 trial of Libby.
  • WSJ reporter Peter Berkowitz noted Miller “writes that Mr. Fitzgerald induced her to give what she now realizes was false testimony.” “By withholding critical information and manipulating her memory as he prepared her to testify, Ms. Miller relates, Mr. Fitzgerald ‘steered’ her ‘in the wrong direction.’” http://www.wnd.com/2016/07/comey-has-long-history-of-clinton-related-cases/
  • Gary Edwards on 09 Jul 16
     
    Bend over and grab your ankles. The rats nest of Clinton operatives in Washington DC is far deeper than anyone ever imagined. "FBI Director James Comey has a long history of involvement in Department of Justice actions that arguably ended up favorable to the Clintons. In 2004, Comey, then serving as a deputy attorney general in the Justice Department, apparently limited the scope of the criminal investigation of Sandy Berger, which left out former Clinton administration officials who may have coordinated with Berger in his removal and destruction of classified records from the National Archives. The documents were relevant to accusations that the Clinton administration was negligent in the build-up to the 9/11 terrorist attack. On Tuesday, Comey announced that despite evidence of "extreme negligence by Hillary Clinton and her top aides regarding the handling of classified information through a private email server, the FBI would not refer criminal charges to Attorney General Loretta Lynch and the Justice Department. Curiously, Berger, Lynch and Cheryl Mills all worked as partners in the Washington law firm Hogan & Hartson, which prepared tax returns for the Clintons and did patent work for a software firm that played a role in the private email server Hillary Clinton used when she was secretary of state. Lynch and Comey both served as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. They crossed paths in the investigation of HSBC bank, which avoided criminal charges in a massive money-laundering scandal for which the bank paid a $1.9 billion fine. After Attorney General John Aschroft recused himself in the Valerie Plame affair in 2004, Comey appointed as special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who ended up convicting "Scooter" Libby, a top aide to then Vice President Dick Cheney, of perjury and obstruction of justice. The charge affirmed the accusations of Plame and her former ambassador husband, Joe Wilson - both partisan supporters of Bill and
  • Paul Merrell on 10 Jul 16
     
    The "ethical" situation is far worse than described. Attorney disciplinary rules require that a lawyer, including all lawyers in the same firm, owe a lifetime duty of loyalty to a client, a duty that does not end with representation in a particular matter. Accordingly, Lynch had what the disciplinary rules refer to as an "actual conflict of interest" between her duties of loyalty to both Hillary and the U.S. government that required her withdrawal from representing either in the decision whether to prosecute Hillary. Saying that she would rubber stamp what Comey recommended was not the required withdrawal. Comey is an investigator, not a prosecutor. This was a situation for appointment of a special counsel to represent the Department of Justice in the decision whether to prosecute, not satisfied by rubber stamping Comey's recomendation,.
Paul Merrell

Call for punishment of Missouri police behind crackdown on journalists - Reporters With... - 0 views

en.rsf.org/missouri-22-08-2014,46833.html

civil liberties Ferguson reporter-arrests ACLU

shared by Paul Merrell on 28 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • At least 15 journalists have been unfairly arrested during the clashes between the police and protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, after a white officer shot dead a young unarmed black man, Michael Brown, on 9 August. As rioting has gripped the town for almost two weeks, police have cracked down on the journalists covering the violence. The arbitrary detention of Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery and Ryan J. Reilly of the Huffington Post on 13 August appeared at first to be isolated instances as a result of the protests getting out of hand, but they were followed by the arrests of at least 13 more journalists, three of them German and one Turkish. All were handcuffed as a matter of routine. The freelance photojournalist Coulter Loeb, on assignment for the Cincinnati Herald, is the most recent to have been placed under arrest. He was held for six hours overnight on 19 August. Journalists are also victims of police brutality. According to Al-Jazeera correspondent Ash-har Quraishi, tear gas was deliberately aimed at his crew.
  • “Reporters Without Borders calls for the punishment of the officers responsible for the arbitrary arrests of journalists covering the demonstrations,” said Camille Soulier, the head of the organization’s Americas desk. “The arrest of journalists for reporting on the riots are in flagrant violation of International conventions as well as the U.S. constitution. An investigation must be carried out to identify the officers that deliberately assaulted and threatened those working for the media. There could be further wrongful arrests unless the authorities take decisive action against such shortcomings on the part of the police.” A resolution passed by the U.N. Human Rights Council in March this year urges states to “pay particular attention to the safety of journalists and media workers covering peaceful protests.” On 15 August, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Missouri police authorities signed an agreement that they “acknowledge and agree that the media and members of the public have the right to record public events without abridgement unless it obstructs the activities or threatens the safety of others, or physically interferes with the ability of law enforcement officers to perform their duties.”
  • Such an agreement may appear unnecessary in the land of the First Amendment, but it should act as a reminder to officers on the ground. In addition, Reporters Without Borders and more than 40 other media organizations have signed a letter at the instigation of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press requesting the Missouri police authorities to allow journalist to do their work. The journalists arrested in Ferguson are listed on the website of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. The United States is ranked 46th of 180 countries in the 2014 Reporters without Borders press freedom index, 13 places below its position in the 2013 edition.
  • Paul Merrell on 28 Aug 14
     
    Tragically, the ACLU had to get a stipulation with state, county, and Ferguson city police that reporters and the press have a right to record public events on video  "without abridgement unless it obstructs the activity or threatens the safety of others or physically interferes or interferes with the ability of law enforcement officers to perform their duties" The ACLU lawsuit over the rough stuff against reporters is still pending.  One might hope that word would have got around by now among all police in America that the Supreme Court has ruled that the public has that right under the First Amendment, but there remains a fairly constant flow of cops who arrest people for recording their activities, seize their cameras, or break them. And playing rough with reporters is plain stupid; it's just asking for a scandal. Police in the U.S. have no right to be dumb as a doornail.
Paul Merrell

Impending Threat to Canadian Democracy: Harper Government's "Anti-Terrorism Act" isn't ... - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5435766

torture Canada legislation liberties tyranny

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • The Harper government’s Bill C-51, or Anti-Terrorism Act, has been in the public domain for over a month. Long enough for us to know that it subverts basic principles of constitutional law, assaults rights of free speech and free assembly, and is viciously anti-democratic. An unprecedented torrent of criticism has been directed against this bill as the government rushes it through Parliament. This has included stern or at least sceptical editorials in all the major newspapers; an open letter, signed by four former Prime Ministers and five former Supreme Court judges, denouncing the bill for exposing Canadians to major violations of their rights; and another letter, signed by a hundred Canadian law professors, explaining the dangers it poses to justice and legality. As its critics have shown, the bill isn’t really about terrorism: it’s about smearing other activities by association—and then suppressing them in ways that would formerly have been flagrantly illegal. The bill targets, among others, people who defend the treaty rights of First Nations, people who oppose tar sands, fracking, and bitumen-carrying pipelines as threats to health and the environment, and people who urge that international law be peacefully applied to ending Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories. (Members of this latter group include significant numbers of Canadian Jews.)
  • But the Anti-Terrorism Act is more mortally dangerous to Canadian democracy than even these indications would suggest. A central section of the act empowers CSIS agents to obtain judicial warrants—on mere suspicion, with no requirement for supporting evidence—that will allow them to supplement other disruptive actions against purported enemies of Harperland with acts that directly violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and other Canadian laws. The only constraints placed on this legalized law-breaking are that CSIS agents shall not “(a) cause, intentionally or by criminal negligence, death or bodily harm to an individual; (b) wilfully attempt in any manner to obstruct, pervert or defeat the course of justice; or (c) violate the sexual integrity of an individual.”
  • The second of these prohibitions—occurring in the midst of a bill that seeks systematically to obstruct citizens in the exercise of their rights, pervert justice, and defeat democracy—might tempt one to believe that there is a satirist at work within the Department of Justice. (Note, however, that CSIS agents can obstruct, pervert and defeat to their hearts’ content, so long as they do so haphazardly, rather than “wilfully.”) But the first and third clauses amount to an authorization of torture.
  • Paul Merrell on 12 Mar 15
     
    U.S. government's excesses metastasize to Canada.
Paul Merrell

Brazil's Epic Scandal Takes Down a Banker - Bloomberg Business - 0 views

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banksters Brazil Esteves criminal-prosecution litigation obstruction corruption

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Brazilians have become inured to seeing politicians and businessmen marched off to prison for corruption. But the mug shot of banker André Esteves—unshaven and frowning—that flashed across TV screens in early December was a shock. Part of a cadre of mavericks who got astonishingly rich from Brazil’s transformation into one of the world’s top 10 economies in the 2000s, Esteves helped turn Grupo BTG Pactual into Latin America’s biggest standalone investment bank. Supremely confident, Esteves—who was a billionaire by his mid-30s—liked to quip that the initials in his company’s name stood for “Better than Goldman.”Around dawn on Nov. 25, Esteves’s fortunes soured in an instant. Police showed up at his apartment, which faces Rio de Janeiro’s legendary Ipanema beach, and hauled him away on allegations of obstructing a federal investigation into a massive pay-to-play scheme centered on Brazil’s state-run oil giant, Petrobras. Now Esteves, 47, resides in a cell block with concrete beds and communal toilets at Bangu, a high-security prison in Rio better known for housing drug traffickers and murderers.
  • Having its founder, chief executive officer, and chairman behind bars has pushed BTG Pactual to the brink of insolvency as clients pull their money out. Within days of his arrest, Esteves had relinquished his controlling stake in the firm, and his partners had begun a wholesale selloff of assets. To avert disaster, Brazil’s central bank helped engineer a $1.6 billion rescue line from the country’s privately funded deposit guarantee fund. Still, the bank’s shares have lost half their value since Esteves’s arrest. On Dec. 7, prosecutors formally accused the banker of obstruction of justice. Antônio Carlos de Almeida Castro, Esteves’s lawyer, says his client has done nothing wrong.The metastatic graft scandal that sent Esteves to jail threatens more than the survival of BTG. So many legislators are implicated, Congress has been unable to pass legislation to contain an exploding budget deficit. President Dilma Rousseff has grown so unpopular that lawmakers are maneuvering to impeach her for allegedly cooking the government’s books. Meanwhile, the economy is sliding into what Goldman Sachs calls a full-blown depression.
  • BTG’s collapse won’t cause Brazil’s capital markets to seize up as Lehman Brothers’ failure did in the U.S. in 2008. Yet having one of the country’s most prominent financiers behind bars is a body blow to the confidence of investors at a time when Brazil needs their cash. “It very much gives you the impression that the corruption scheme is so widespread that it induces a kind of counterparty risk,” says Monica de Bolle, a former International Monetary Fund economist. “You enter into transactions with people in Brazil without knowing whether or not they might be implicated in something.” The result: “Nothing gets done. There’s no business,” she says.
Gary Edwards

Watergate Articles Of Impeachment - 0 views

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impeachment articles-of-impeachment

shared by Gary Edwards on 29 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 29 Oct 12
     
    "Articles of Impeachment This is the full text of the Articles of Impeachment adopted by House Judiciary Committee on July 27, 1974." Excerpts: Intro :: ARTICLE 1 In his conduct of the office of President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his consitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has prevented, obstructed, and impeded the administration of justice, in that: Conclusion: In all of this, Richard M. Nixon has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore Richard M. Nixon, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
Paul Merrell

FBI Said To Move To "Likely Indictment" Of Clinton Foundation, Fox News Reports | Zero ... - 0 views

www.zerohedge.com/...on-foundation-fox-news-reports

Auction 2016 Hillary FBI-investigations emails Clinton-Foundation

shared by Paul Merrell on 03 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • Roughly at the same time that the WSJ reported of what is now a clear "civil war" between (and within) the FBI and the DOJ, Fox News anchor Bret Baier reported that the FBI's investigation into the Clinton Foundation that has been going on for more than a year has now taken a "very high priority." He added that FBI agents have interviewed and re-interviewed multiple people on the foundation case, which is looking into possible pay for play interaction between then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation.   The FBI's White Collar Crime Division is handling the investigation, which will continue, as "there is a lot of evidence. And barring some obstruction in some way, they believe they will continue to likely an indictment."
  • The news was cited by various traders as the catalyst that pressured the USD when it come out late on Wednesday. "There is an avalanche of new information coming in every day," one source told Fox News, who added some of the new information is coming from the WikiLeaks documents and new emails. He added that FBI agents are "actively and aggressively pursuing this case," and will be going back and interviewing the same people again, some for the third time, sources said. Agents are also going through what Clinton and top aides have said in previous interviews and the FBI 302, documents agents use to report interviews they conduct, to make sure notes line up, according to sources.
  • Here are the key highlights from his report, as summarized by Real Clear Politics: The Clinton Foundation investigation is far more expansive than anybody has reported so far and has been going on for more than a year. The laptops of Clinton aides Cherryl Mills and Heather Samuelson have not been destroyed, and agents are currently combing through them. The investigation has interviewed several people twice, and plans to interview some for a third time. Agents have found emails believed to have originated on Hillary Clinton's secret server on Anthony Weiner's laptop. They say the emails are not duplicates and could potentially be classified in nature. Sources within the FBI have told him that an indictment is "likely" in the case of pay-for-play at the Clinton Foundation, "barring some obstruction in some way" from the Justice Department. FBI sources say with 99% accuracy that Hillary Clinton's server has been hacked by at least five foreign intelligence agencies, and that information had been taken from it.
Gary Edwards

Google News - 1 views

news.google.com/?ar=1376592686

Impeachment articles-of-impeachment

shared by Gary Edwards on 15 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 15 Aug 13
     
    Ten Articles of Impeachment have been drawn up and submitted to the House Judiciary Committee for consideration. Very well written, the articles are a clear indictment of Obama, listing his offenses in the most concise and clear manner I've seen to date. Excellent stuff. "The National Black Republican Association (NBRA) based in Sarasota, FL, headed by Chairman Frances Rice, filed Articles of Impeachment against President Barack Obama with the following language: We, black American citizens, in order to free ourselves and our fellow citizens from governmental tyranny, do herewith submit these Articles of Impeachment to Congress for the removal of President Barack H. Obama, aka, Barry Soetoro, from office for his attack on liberty and commission of egregious acts of despotism that constitute high crimes and misdemeanors. On July 4, 1776, the founders of our nation declared their independence from governmental tyranny and reaffirmed their faith in independence with the ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791.  Asserting their right to break free from the tyranny of a nation that denied them the civil liberties that are our birthright, the founders declared: "When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."  -  Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776. THE IMPEACHMENT POWER Article II, Section IV of the United States Constitution provides: "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." THE ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT In his conduct of the office of President of the United States, Barack H. Obama, aka Barry Soetoro, personally and through his subordinates and agents, in violation or disre
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Aug 13
Gary Edwards

Who owns the Bank of England? |Dark Politricks - 0 views

www.darkpolitricks.com/...who-owns-the-bank-of-england

banksters Banksters-of-America Rothschild-Bank-of-England

shared by Gary Edwards on 21 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 21 Sep 13
     
    "Who owns the Bank of England? A brief history of World Banksters By Dark Politricks First a few historical comments by people who helped create two of the worlds most famous central banks, the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve. "I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men." - Woodrow Wilson, after signing the Federal Reserve into existence The Bank of England was created in 1694 by a Scotsman William Paterson who famously said: The bank hath benefit of interest on all moneys which it creates out of nothing. - William Paterson The history of the Bank of England and how it was taken over by one powerful family hundreds of years ago. Up until 1946 when it was nationalised the Bank of England was a private run bank that lent money it created out of nothing to the English government and was paid back with interest. A very famous story relates to the Bank of England and the infamous Rothschilds, that all powerful banking family. This story was re-told recently in a BBC documentary about the creation of money and the Bank of England. It revolves around the Battle of Waterloo in which Nathan Rothschild used his inside knowledge of the outcome and his faster horses and couriers to play the market by getting the result of the battle before anyone else knew the outcome. He quickly sold his English bonds and gave all the traders who looked to him for guidance the impression that the French had won at Waterloo. The other traders all rus
Paul Merrell

Increasing Attention to Allegations of 9/11 FBI Cover-Up | 28 Pages.org - 0 views

28pages.org/...llegations-of-911-fbi-cover-up

war & peace false-flag 9-11 FBI Bush Cheney Mueller 28-pages

shared by Paul Merrell on 21 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • While much of the speculation about the contents of the 28 classified pages from a 9/11 intelligence inquiry center on the secret activities of foreign governments, there is growing scrutiny on the secret activities of our own government—specifically, its investigation of the terrorists both before and after the attacks.
  • Television station WTSP, which serves Sarasota and Tampa Bay, aired a very insightful report last week in which investigative reporter Mike Deeson talked to former Senator Bob Graham and dug deep into the FBI’s concealment of its investigation of the Sarasota 9/11 terror cell. You can watch it here.
  • Meanwhile at Counterpunch, James Ridgeway traces the FBI’s stonewalling of the joint House/Senate intelligence inquiry all the way to the White House and makes the case that the failure to cooperate with the inquiry may well amount to obstruction of justice by George Bush, Dick Cheney and FBI Director Robert Mueller: Finally in his book, Graham describes a letter from a member of the FBI’s congressional staff explaining the Bureau had been uncooperative on orders of the administration.  “We were seeing in writing what we had suspected for some time. The White House was directing the coverup.
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  • “Later, when the 911 Commission conducted its own investigation, both Bush and Cheney met with them in a private, off-the-record conversation.” This story and the new piece by Wright strongly suggest the President, Vice President and head of the FBI were engaged in obstruction of justice. If so, that would call for the convening of a federal grand jury. Would the Justice Department, which runs the FBI, do that? Probably not.
Gary Edwards

Peter J. Wallison: The Price for Fannie and Freddie Keeps Going Up - WSJ.com - 0 views

online.wsj.com/...3278604574624681873427574.html

financial-crisis socialist-scourge obammunism banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 31 Dec 09 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 31 Dec 09
     
    Whoa.  This is bad stuff.  The facts, the numbers, the players.  They all point to our Federal government, the Clinton Administration in 1993, Democrat obstruction of much needed reform, and a Democratic Congress in 2007 as the catalist that blew an $18 Trillion dollar hole in our economy.  Miserable socialist bastardos!! excerpt:  Fannie and Freddie's congressional sponsors-some of whom are now leading the administration's effort to "reform" the financial system-have a lot to answer for. Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, sponsored legislation adopted in 2008 that established a new regulatory structure for the GSEs. But by then it was far too late. The GSEs had begun buying risky loans in 1993 to meet the "affordable housing" requirements established under congressional direction by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Most of the damage was done from 2005 through 2007, when Fannie and Freddie were binging on risky mortgages. Back then, Mr. Frank was the bartender, denying that there was any cause for concern, and claiming that he wanted to "roll the dice" on subsidized housing support. View Full Image Associated Press In 2005, the Senate Banking Committee, then controlled by Republicans, adopted tough regulatory legislation that would have established more auditing and oversight of the two agencies. But it was passed out of committee on a partisan vote, and with no Democratic support it never came to a vote. By the end of 2008, Fannie and Freddie held or guaranteed approximately 10 million subprime and Alt-A mortgages and mortgage-backed securities (MBS)-risky loans with a total principal balance of $1.6 trillion. These are now defaulting at unprecedented rates, accounting for both their 2008 insolvency and their growing losses today. Since 2008, under government control, the two agencies have continued to buy dicey mortgages in order to stabilize housing prices. There is more to th
Gary Edwards

American Thinker: Obamacare - The Perfect Constitutional Storm - 0 views

www.americanthinker.com/...erfect_constitutional_sto.html

obamacare Obammunism constitution constitutional-challenge

shared by Gary Edwards on 06 Apr 10 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 06 Apr 10
     
    Much has been made of several states suing the federal government over the passage of ObamaCare. The argument is, essentially, that the new law violates the 10th Amendment and infringes on the "commerce clause" of the Constitution. In this article, I will argue that this approach by the states will probably fail (in and of itself) -- but that the suits brought by the states could play a role in a more comprehensive strategy to challenge the constitutionality of ObamaCare. Let's make one thing clear up front. The states are motivated to take legal action to stop the recently passed health care bill because of one primary factor: political pressure. Around 60% of the people in America are mad as hell about the passage of ObamaCare -- and any local or state elected official with a lick of sense knows it. There are some governors and state legislators who have figured out that ObamaCare may amount to the final nail in the coffins of their financially deceased states' treasuries. But few politicians worry about their states' debts; most agonize over being reelected. States have ceded power, with few complaints, to the federal government for highway funding, control of education, Medicare and Medicaid mandates, management of waterways, etc., etc., ad nauseam, for over fifty years. The states, acting alone in a constitutional challenge of the new health care legislation, will have some difficult hurdles to overcome: A) Article VI of the Constitution states in part: This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof ... shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. States can pass all the laws that they want "nullifying" ObamaCare. But they can't nullify the Constitution. Article VI is a huge obstruction for the states because, like it or not, ObamaCare is now the "law of the land." B) The "comme
Paul Merrell

US military leadership resisted Obama's bid for regime change in Syria, Libya | Middle ... - 0 views

www.middleeasteye.net/...tance-regime-change-1343405723

Auction 2016 Hillary Hillary-chicken-hawk Libya Syria

shared by Paul Merrell on 05 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • Seymour Hersh’s recent revelations about an effort by the US military leadership in 2013 to bolster the Syrian army against jihadist forces in Syria shed important new light on the internal bureaucratic politics surrounding regime change in US Middle East policy. Hersh’s account makes it clear that the Obama administration’s policy of regime change in both Libya and Syria provoked pushback from the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). 
  • Paul Merrell on 05 Jan 16
     
    Hillary Clinton's "regime change" policies as Secretary of State helped spread the chaos that has turned the Middle East into a killing field and might have done even worse if not for extraordinary obstructions from the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff regarding Syria. Gareth Porter, who exposed that the claims that Iran had a nuclear weapons program were pure propaganda, is the author of this article.
Paul Merrell

MoA - Trump Votes For Rexit - Torture Queen Will Head CIA - (Updated) - 0 views

www.moonofalabama.org/...rl-to-become-cia-director.html

CIA torture Haspel appointments

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Mar 18 - No Cached
  • The new CIA director Gina Haspel is well known for actively directing and participating in the torture of prisoners at 'black sites': Beyond all that, she played a vital role in the destruction of interrogation videotapes that showed the torture of detainees both at the black site she ran and other secret agency locations. The concealment of those interrogation tapes, which violated multiple court orders as well as the demands of the 9/11 commission and the advice of White House lawyers, was condemned as “obstruction” by commission chairs Lee Hamilton and Thomas Keane. Haspel would be in jail if former president Barack Obama had not decided against prosecuting the CIA torture crimes. Torturing prisoners is a war crime. Obstruction of courts and destruction of evidence are likewise crimes.
Paul Merrell

Obama's pledge of US troops to Sinai next week won Israel's nod for ceasefire - 0 views

www.debka.com/...el%E2%80%99s-nod-for-ceasefire

war & peace Obama war crimes U.S. foreign policy Israel Egypt Gaza

shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • sraeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu agreed to a ceasefire for halting the eight-day Israeli Gaza operation Wednesday night, Nov. 21, after President Barack Obama personally pledged to start deploying US troops in Egyptian Sinai next week, debkafile reports. The conversation, which finally tipped the scales for a ceasefire, took place on a secure line Wednesday morning, just hours before it was announced in Cairo.
  • When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Jerusalem from Bangkok Tuesday, she tried assuring Netanyahu that President Obama had decided to accelerate the construction of an elaborate US system of electronic security fences along the Suez Canal and northern Sinai. It would also cork up the Philadelphi route through which arms are smuggled into the Gaza Strip.
  • US security and civilian units will need to be deployed in Egyptian Sinai to man the fence system and operate it as an active counter-measure for obstructing the smuggling of Iranian weapons supplies. The prime minister said he welcomed the president’s proposal to expedite the fence project, but it would take months to obtain Egyptian clearance. Meanwhile, the Palestinians would have plenty of time to replenish their weapons stocks after Israel’s Gaza campaign. It was therefore too soon to stop the campaign at this point or hold back a ground incursion. Clinton was sympathetic to this argument. Soon after, President Obama was on the phone to Netanyahu with an assurance that US troops would be in place in Sinai next week, after he had obtained President Morsi’s consent for them to go into immediate action against Iranian smuggling networks. Netanyahu responded by agreeing to a ceasefire being announced in Cairo that night by Clinton and the Egyptian foreign minister, and to holding back the thousands of Israeli reservists on standby on the Gaza border. debkafile’s military sources report that the first air transports carrying US special forces are due to land at Sharm el Sheikh military airfield in southern Sinai in the next 48 hours and go into action against the arms smugglers without delay.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Indeed, Gaza’s Hamas rulers will be forced to watch as US troops in Sinai, just across its border, break up the smuggling rings filling their arsenals and most likely laying hands on the reserve stocks they maintain under the smugglers’ guard in northern Sinai, out of reach of the Israel army. This means that the blockade on Gaza has been extended and the focus of combat has switched from Gaza to the Sinai Peninsula.
  • Paul Merrell on 24 Nov 12
     
    So according to this article, the U.S. will be conducting  combat operations in the Sinai Peninsula sometime this weekend. 
Paul Merrell

Meet the Israeli-linked firm that sold Big Brother machines to Mubarak, Qaddafi - and W... - 0 views

mondoweiss.net/...chines-qaddafi-washington.html

surveillance state NSA Israel Narus Verint Obama

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • In 2006, an AT&T technician named Mark Klein discovered a secret room inside the company’s windowless “Folsom Street Facility” in downtown San Francisco that was bristling with Narus machines. The now notorious Room 641A was controlled by the NSA, which was using it to collect AT&T customer data for data mining and real-time analysis. Thanks to the powerful NarusInsight system, the NSA was able to monitor 108 billion emails from AT&T customers per day.
  • Following a lawsuit filed against AT&T by the Electronic Freedom Foundation, Congress passed the FISA Amendments Act in July 2008, giving retroactive immunity to telecom corporations that assisted the NSA, and relieving them of any consequences for spying on Americans. Cass Sunstein, an informal advisor to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign who now heads the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, and who has urged federal law enforcement to “cognitively infiltrate” anti-government groups, was an outspoken supporter of the retroactive immunity bill. With Sunstein by his side, Obama reversed his initial objections to the NSA’s domestic spying operations, voting as a Senator for retroactive immunity. The vote allowed the NSA to expand its domestic spying operations, clearing the legal hurdles obstructing the creation of PRISM. The stage was set for the second term scandal that would leave Obama reeling.
  • Binney told me that throughout the United States there are currently as many as 20 NSA black sites like Room 641A. Narus devices, he said, have been placed at fiber-optic convergence points, allowing the NSA to retrieve about 80 percent of data carried through telecom and online service providers. Binney emphasized that the devices do not only retrieve so-called metadata, which only offers general records of data, but that they gather the actual content of emails and calls. (“We can reconstruct all of their e-mails along with attachments, see what web pages they clicked on; we can reconstruct their (Voice Over Internet) calls,” said Steve Bannerman, the marketing director of Narus). Thanks to PRISM, the NSA bas been able to “fill in the gaps,” Binney explained, gathering bulk data from communications the NSA might have missed with the NarusInsight system, especially those made between Americans and foreign countries.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Another Israeli-linked tech company, Verint, is a subsidiary of the Israeli firm Comverse, which boasts a reputation as “the world’s leading provider… of communications intercept and analysis” technology. Among the many Comverse executives plucked from the ranks of Israeli army intelligence is the company’s founder, Jacob “Kobi” Alexander, an ex-Israeli intelligence agent who cashed in through Israel’s high-tech surveillance industry. Alexander’s lucrative career collapsed in dramatic fashion when he was arrested for fraud in Namibia in 2006 after an international manhunt, and wound up handing over bank accounts worth $46 million to US authorities.
  • Just as AT&T relied on Narus systems, Verint’s DPI devices have been used to fulfill NSA requests for data from Verizon’s subscribers. And as Bamford explained in his 2008 book on the NSA, “Shadow Factory,” much of the data Verint and other private Israeli contractors gather from can be remotely accessed from Israel. “The greatest potential beneficiaries of this marriage between the Israeli eavesdroppers and America’s increasingly centralized telecom grid are Israel’s intelligence agencies,” Bamford wrote.
Paul Merrell

Disengage or Die: Russia - Syria Give Aleppo "Rebels" a Last 10-Hour Ultimatum - nsnbc ... - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...ebels-a-last-10-hour-ultimatum

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Syria Aleppo cease-fire Russia Al-Nusrah

shared by Paul Merrell on 02 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • The Russian General Staff announced on Wednesday that a new humanitarian pause in combat activities will be implemented in Aleppo on Friday from 9am to 7pm local time. The pause will give non-combatants a new chance to leave the “rebel-held” pocket in eastern Aleppo and “rebels” to leave the pocket with their weapons and to move to other “rebel-held areas.
  • It hasn’t been part of the official announcement about the humanitarian pause and the offer that militants could evacuate. However, military logic dictates that this is a last “do or die” ultimatum before the use of decisive military force will be used against those militants who don’t leave the pocket in Aleppo. The offer about the 10-hour-long pause comes as insurgents are engaged in a massive assault against Syrian and Syrian-allied forces west of Aleppo in a desperate attempt to lift the siege. Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia Valery Gerasimov asserted that the decision was approved by Syrian authorities and was meant to “prevent senseless casualties” by allowing civilians and gunmen to leave the eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo. Gerasimov said: “All of the militants’ attempts to break through in the city of Aleppo have been unsuccessful. The terrorists suffered heavy losses of manpower, weaponry and military equipment. They have no chance to escape from the city” . He also called upon all terrorist groups’ leaders to get out from Aleppo city in light of Washington’s failure to separate the so-called “moderate opposition” from the terrorists. The latter statement underpins that Syria and Russia have to, and will count on a decisive military confrontation to clear the eastern part of the city from insurgents and to reestablish Syrian sovereignty as well as law and order in the entire city.
  • One of the corridors for the gunmen leads to the Turkish-Syrian border and another one to Idleb countryside, the General said, adding “During Friday’s pause, six additional corridors will be opened for civilians wishing to leave the city.”
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • On October 20 – 22 a similar humanitarian pause was implemented. However, the evacuation of civilians was obstructed by Jabhat al-Nusrah (a.ka. Jabhat Ahrar al-Sham) and other insurgents. nsnbc consulted with a military expert from “a leading European military academy” who spoke on condition of anonymity. The expert stressed that the military as well as the humanitarian situation, in the absence of a political solution, dictates that eastern Aleppo be seized in a decisive battle unless insurgents use the “do or die” offer given to them. This need for a decisive military campaign, including the use of overwhelming air power, is in part dictated by the fact that Turkey hasn’t closed its border to insurgents, including Al-Qaeda affiliates, the entry of Turkish (NATO) troops into Syria, and the need to seize control over eastern Aleppo before winter sets in to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe, he said. Surgical air strikes against remaining insurgents inside eastern Aleppo could typically be preceded by the dissemination of information to non-combatants, encouraging them to leave certain areas while seeking refuge in others, he added. It is noteworthy that the offer to evacuate coincides with the arrival of Russian naval forces including the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov in the Mediterranean.
  • Paul Merrell on 02 Nov 16
     
    It isn't just winter approaching. Russia and Syria undoubtedly want to finish taking Aleppo before the new U.S. president is sworn in.
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