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Paul Merrell

FindLaw | Cases and Codes - 0 views

caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/...getcase.pl

surveillance state NSA pen-register 4th Amendment

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • SMITH v. MARYLAND, 442 U.S. 735 (1979)
  • The telephone company, at police request, installed at its central offices a pen register to record the numbers dialed from the telephone at petitioner's home. Prior to his robbery trial, petitioner moved to suppress "all fruits derived from" the pen register. The Maryland trial court denied this motion, holding that the warrantless installation of the pen register did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Petitioner was convicted, and the Maryland Court of Appeals affirmed. Held: The installation and use of the pen register was not a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, and hence no warrant was required. Pp. 739-746. (a) Application of the Fourth Amendment depends on whether the person invoking its protection can claim a "legitimate expectation of privacy" that has been invaded by government action. This inquiry normally embraces two questions: first, whether the individual has exhibited an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy; and second, whether his expectation is one that society is prepared to recognize as "reasonable." Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 . Pp. 739-741.
  • (b) Petitioner in all probability entertained no actual expectation of privacy in the phone numbers he dialed, and even if he did, his expectation was not "legitimate." First, it is doubtful that telephone users in general have any expectation of privacy regarding the numbers they dial, since they typically know that they must convey phone numbers to the telephone company and that the company has facilities for recording this information and does in fact record it for various legitimate business purposes. And petitioner did not demonstrate an expectation of privacy merely by using his home phone rather than some other phone, since his conduct, although perhaps calculated to keep the contents of his conversation private, was not calculated to preserve the privacy of the number he dialed. Second, even if petitioner did harbor some subjective expectation of privacy, this expectation was not one that society is prepared to recognize as "reasonable." When petitioner voluntarily conveyed numerical information to the phone company and "exposed" that information to its equipment in the normal course of business, he assumed the risk that the company would reveal the information [442 U.S. 735, 736]   to the police, cf. United States v. Miller, 425 U.S. 435 . Pp. 741-746. 283 Md. 156, 389 A. 2d 858, affirmed.
  • Paul Merrell on 20 Jun 13
     
    The Washington Post has reported that "on July 15 [2001], the secret surveillance court allowed the NSA to resume bulk collection under the court's own authority. The opinion, which remains highly classified, was based on a provision of electronic surveillance law, known as "pen register, trap and trace," that was written to allow law enforcement officers to obtain the phone numbers of incoming and outgoing calls from a single telephone line." .  The seminal case on pen registers is the Supreme Court's 1979 Smith v. Maryland decision, bookmarked here and the Clerk's syllabus highlighted, with the Court's discussion on the same web page. We will be hearing a lot about this case decision in the weeks and months to come.  Let it suffice for now to record a few points of what my antenna are telling me:  -- Both technology and the law have moved on since then. We are 34 years down the line from the Smith decision. Its pronouncements have been sliced and diced by subsequent decisions. Not a single Justice who sat on the Smith case is still on the High Bench.   -- In Smith, a single pen register was used to obtain calling information from a single telephone number by law enforcement officials. In the present circumstance, we face an Orwellian situation of a secret intelligence agency with no law enforcement authority forbidden by law from conducting domestic surveillance perusing and all digital communications of the entire citizenry. -- The NSA has been gathering not only information analogous to pen register results but also the communications of American citizens themselves. The communications themselves --- the contents --- are subject to the 4th Amendment warrant requirement. Consider the circuitous route of the records ordered to be disclosed in the Verizon FISA order. Verizon was ordered to disclose them to the FBI, not to the NSA. But then the FBI apparently forwards the records to the NSA, who has both the "pen register
Paul Merrell

Australia's criminlisation of dissent: anti-protest law is an ominous sign of the times... - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...protest-law-ominous-sign-times

liberties Australia Tasmania anti-protest-law

shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Australia’s criminlisation of dissent: anti-protest law is an ominous sign of the times Share This Tags AustraliaTasmania Brendan Gogarty (TC) : The Workplaces (Protection from Protesters) Bill – locally known as the “anti-protest” bill – was passed by Tasmanian parliament late on Tuesday night. The law was introduced as part of the government’s intention to “re-build Tasmania’s forestry industry”. That is a source of controversy and division in Tasmanian society. To achieve its aim, the government has committed itself to a wide legislative agenda. This includes: amending the uniform Defamation Act 2005 to allow large companies to sue protesters; defunding community and conservation organisations; and tearing up a “peace deal” between foresters and conservationists, which had been enacted into law before the 2014 election.
  • Recognising the potential return to hostilities, the government said it would “not try and appease” protesters, but would rather “toughen the law to deter them”. The anti-protest law is its chosen mechanism of deterrence. While such hard-line policies on political opposition are not new, the severity and breadth of the law to enforce such a policy arguably is. The shift from hard-line policy to hard-line law is worrisome in a constitutional democracy. The spread of state anti-bikie laws in Australia illustrates why this law is not just of concern for Tasmanians.
  • The new law covers all acts on, or acts inhibiting access to, a business premises (all public and private land, including forestry and mining lands) which are: … in furtherance of, or for the purposes of promoting awareness of or support for an opinion, or belief, in respect of a political, environmental, social, cultural or economic issue. Any such protest is subject to significant penalties if they interrupt “business activity”. While originally such sanctions were mandatory, the government agreed in the upper house to exchange these for discretionary penalties. However, the government agreed to this only on condition that the subsequent maximum penalties would be significantly increased. This was to “send a strong message” to protesters and the courts charged with punishing them. As a consequence, protesters who repeatedly interrupt business face fines of up to A$10,000 and four years in jail.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • From its inception, the law has been criticised by domestic and international lawyers. Three United Nations human rights rapporteurs considered the bill to breach international law, one describing it as “shocking”. They considered the legislation, as originally envisioned, to be: … disproportionate and unnecessary [creating a] chilling effect of silencing dissenters … [who are] key to raising awareness about human rights, political, [and] social concerns … holding not just governments, but also corporations accountable. A wide range of legal professionals have voiced similar criticisms. While the removal of mandatory penalties alleviated some concerns, the larger concern about a law designed solely to punish people for protesting against controversial business activities – especially publicly supported and funded ones – remains.
  • Paul Merrell on 30 Nov 14
     
    Australia has neither constitution nor Bill of Rights. It shows.
Paul Merrell

Amid F-Bomb and Uproar, Dems Face Demands to Get Behind Single Payer | Common Dreams - 0 views

www.commondreams.org/...emands-get-behind-single-payer

Auction-2018 California Dems single-payer-healthcare

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 May 17 - No Cached
  • California Democrats on Friday kicked off their three-day convention with a "raucous start" in Sacramento, where a wave of single-payer advocates demanded the party work towards a system that makes healthcare a human right. The gathering comes amid growing momentum nationwide for a single-payer, or Medicare-for-All, healthcare system, and as the Republican's widely scorned American Healthcare Act (AHCA) is days away from receiving its potentially problematic Congressional Budget Office (CBO) assessment. In a evening rally and march that went from the capitol to the Sacramento Convention Center, a crowd of nurses and other healthcare activists urged support for SB562—the advancing Healthy California Act—which would create a universal health system for Californians, and could "send a message" and "be a catalyst for the nation."
  • Their message, however, was not warmly received by California Democratic Party chairman John Burton. In fact, he "had nothing but F-bombs and sarcasm for the protesters who disrupted the welcome reception of the California Democratic Convention Friday, calling for universal healthcare and chanting 'Hey hey, ho ho, corporate Dems have got to go,'" Bay Area News Group reported. Video captured and posted to Twitter by Politico reporter David Siders shows Burton telling them to "shut the fuck up or go outside."
Gary Edwards

Doug Casey on American Socialism - Casey Research - 0 views

www.caseyresearch.com/...doug-casey-american-socialism

Doug-Casey Socialism economic-ruin

shared by Gary Edwards on 20 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 20 Oct 12
     
    "Doug Casey on American Socialism"  .  Awesome interview, especially the discussion on Liberalism and how the socialist Norman Thomas decided to co-opt the term as an effective replacement for the disreputable socialism.  Links to the Thomas 1932 socialist platform that Casey points out has pretty much been put into place.   Good discussion.  Focus on an article published by socialist apologist and idiot, Allan Colmes.
  • Paul Merrell on 20 Oct 12
     
    I agree that Colmes is far from the sharpest knife in the drawer. In my opinion, he was largely a Fox News invention to give Shawn Hannity a far weaker opponent to argue against that Hannity's idiocy could still overcome. There are in reality liberals that Hannity could never have gone toe-to-toe with. (That's not an endorsement of liberalism; it's commentary on the quality of Hannity's arguments.) The show was mostly a variant of the straw man logical fallacy; the fact that Colmes lacked the ability to think critically or communicate effectively made Hannity "win" the pseudo-debate in the eyes of those unable to think critically themselves. I have some criticism of Casey's remarks that apply more generally to my experience of strict Libertarians and perhaps even farther to strict adherents to any "ism." My criticism boils down to a couple of examples of hard issues usually avoided by strict Libertarians. -- The Disabled: When discussing Social Security disability benefits, Casey changes the subject from the genuinely disabled to a short rant about those whose disability claims are bogus and the "ambulance chasing" lawyers who pursue their claims. But if pressed to the wall and forced to answer, I strongly suspect that Casey would admit that there are people, likely the majority of Social Security disability benefits, whose claims are genuine. The net effect of his relevant argument: an impression that he has a Darwinian view that he would leave the disabled dying in the streets without sustenance or medical care. That kind of society is unacceptable to me. Perhaps it is to Casey too, but if so I think it was incumbent on him to offer a solution for the genuinely disabled. (In fairness, I'll note that at one point Casey hinted but did not forthrightly say that he would favor financial assistance for single mothers in Harlem.) -- Medical Care: I agree that our health care system is badly broken. But again Casey is long on criticism but short on realistic idea
Gary Edwards

75 Economic Numbers From 2012 That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe - 0 views

theeconomiccollapseblog.com/...re-almost-too-crazy-to-believe

economic-collapse Obammunism Obamanomics

shared by Gary Edwards on 13 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 13 Jan 13
     
    Thanks to Marbux we have this extraordinary collection of facts and figures describing the economic catastrophe that has hit the USA.  excerpt: "What a year 2012 has been!  The mainstream media continues to tell us what a "great job" the Obama administration and the Federal Reserve are doing of managing the economy, but meanwhile things just continue to get even worse for the poor and the middle class.  It is imperative that we educate the American people about the true condition of our economy and about why all of this is happening.  If nothing is done, our debt problems will continue to get worse, millions of jobs will continue to leave the country, small businesses will continue to be suffocated, the middle class will continue to collapse, and poverty in the United States will continue to explode.  Just "tweaking" things slightly is not going to fix our economy.  We need a fundamental change in direction.  Right now we are living in a bubble of debt-fueled false prosperity that allows us to continue to consume far more wealth than we produce, but when that bubble bursts we are going to experience the most painful economic "adjustment" that America has ever gone through.  We need to be able to explain to our fellow Americans what is coming, why it is coming and what needs to be done.  Hopefully the crazy economic numbers that I have included in this article will be shocking enough to wake some people up. The end of the year is a time when people tend to gather with family and friends more than they do during the rest of the year.  Hopefully many of you will use the list below as a tool to help start some conversations about the coming economic collapse with your loved ones.  Sadly, most Americans still tend to doubt that we are heading into economic oblivion.  So if you have someone among your family and friends that believes that everything is going to be "just fine", just show them these numbers.  They are a good summary of the problems that the U
Paul Merrell

Tech firms and privacy groups press for curbs on NSA surveillance powers - The Washingt... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...4-ab77-9646eea6a4c7_story.html

surveillance state Patriot-Act 215-sunset NSA-reform legislation

shared by Paul Merrell on 29 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • The nation’s top technology firms and a coalition of privacy groups are urging Congress to place curbs on government surveillance in the face of a fast-approaching deadline for legislative action. A set of key Patriot Act surveillance authorities expire June 1, but the effective date is May 21 — the last day before Congress breaks for a Memorial Day recess. In a letter to be sent Wednesday to the Obama administration and senior lawmakers, the coalition vowed to oppose any legislation that, among other things, does not ban the “bulk collection” of Americans’ phone records and other data.
  • We know that there are some in Congress who think that they can get away with reauthorizing the expiring provisions of the Patriot Act without any reforms at all,” said Kevin Bankston, policy director of New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute, a privacy group that organized the effort. “This letter draws a line in the sand that makes clear that the privacy community and the Internet industry do not intend to let that happen without a fight.” At issue is the bulk collection of Americans’ data by intelligence agencies such as the National Security Agency. The NSA’s daily gathering of millions of records logging phone call times, lengths and other “metadata” stirred controversy when it was revealed in June 2013 by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The records are placed in a database that can, with a judge’s permission, be searched for links to foreign terrorists.They do not include the content of conversations.
  • That program, placed under federal surveillance court oversight in 2006, was authorized by the court in secret under Section 215 of the Patriot Act — one of the expiring provisions. The public outcry that ensued after the program was disclosed forced President Obama in January 2014 to call for an end to the NSA’s storage of the data. He also appealed to Congress to find a way to preserve the agency’s access to the data for counterterrorism information.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Despite growing opposition in some quarters to ending the NSA’s program, a “clean” authorization — one that would enable its continuation without any changes — is unlikely, lawmakers from both parties say. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a leading opponent of the NSA’s program in its current format, said he would be “surprised if there are 60 votes” in the Senate for that. In the House, where there is bipartisan support for reining in surveillance, it’s a longer shot still. “It’s a toxic vote back in your district to reauthorize the Patriot Act, if you don’t get some reforms” with it, said Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.). The House last fall passed the USA Freedom Act, which would have ended the NSA program, but the Senate failed to advance its own version.The House and Senate judiciary committees are working to come up with new bipartisan legislation to be introduced soon.
  • The tech firms and privacy groups’ demands are a baseline, they say. Besides ending bulk collection, they want companies to have the right to be more transparent in reporting on national security requests and greater declassification of opinions by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
  • Some legal experts have pointed to a little-noticed clause in the Patriot Act that would appear to allow bulk collection to continue even if the authority is not renewed. Administration officials have conceded privately that a legal case probably could be made for that, but politically it would be a tough sell. On Tuesday, a White House spokesman indicated the administration would not seek to exploit that clause. “If Section 215 sunsets, we will not continue the bulk telephony metadata program,” National Security Council spokesman Edward Price said in a statement first reported by Reuters. Price added that allowing Section 215 to expire would result in the loss of a “critical national security tool” used in investigations that do not involve the bulk collection of data. “That is why we have underscored the imperative of Congressional action in the coming weeks, and we welcome the opportunity to work with lawmakers on such legislation,” he said.
  • Paul Merrell on 29 Mar 15
     
    I omitted some stuff about opposition to sunsetting the provisions. They  seem to forget, as does Obama, that the proponents of the FISA Court's expansive reading of section 215 have not yet come up with a single instance where 215-derived data caught a single terrorist or prevented a single act of terrorism. Which means that if that data is of some use, it ain't in fighting terrorism, the purpose of the section.  Patriot Act § 215 is codified as 50 USCS § 1861, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1861 That section authorizes the FBI to obtain an iorder from the FISA Court "requiring the production of *any tangible things* (including books, records, papers, documents, and other items)."  Specific examples (a non-exclusive list) include: the production of library circulation records, library patron lists, book sales records, book customer lists, firearms sales records, tax return records, educational records, or medical records containing information that would identify a person." The Court can order that the recipient of the order tell no one of its receipt of the order or its response to it.   In other words, this is about way more than your telephone metadata. Do you trust the NSA with your medical records? 
Paul Merrell

Freedom for Saif al-Islam Gaddafi! Freedom for Libya! - nsnbc international | nsnbc int... - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...slam-gaddafi-freedom-for-libya

war & peace Libya Gadafi reconstruction

shared by Paul Merrell on 15 Jul 16 - No Cached
  • The news that Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of the assassinated leader of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Muammar Gaddafi, has been released from captivity is one of the most significant developments in Libya in some time. For while the Western corporate media would like people to believe that the Gaddafi name is dead and buried, the fact remains that Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, and the surviving members of the Gaddafi family, are seen as heroes by many in Libya. Moreover, Saif’s release has the potential to transform the political situation in the country.
  • Although details are few and far between, what we do know is that according to his lawyer at the International Criminal Court (ICC), Saif Gaddafi “was given his liberty on April 12, 2016.” Indeed official documents (which remain unverified) seem to support the assertion that Saif has, in fact, been released. Considering the statements from his attorneys that Saif is “well and safe and in Libya,” the political ramifications of this development should not be underestimated. Not only is Saif Gaddafi the second eldest and most prominent of Col. Gaddafi’s sons, he is also the one seen as the inheritor of his father’s legacy of independent peaceful development and the maintenance of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. This last point is of critical importance as his release is a clear signal to many Libyans that the resistance to the NATO-imposed chaos and war is alive and well. And while there have been isolated upsurges of pro-Gaddafi sentiments at various times in the last five years, they mostly remained underground. Perhaps it might soon be time for the resistance to once again become united as it moves to drive out the terrorists and opportunists who have torn the jewel of Africa apart these last five years.
  • It is against this dizzying political backdrop that one must examine the significance of a potential return for Saif al-Islam Gaddafi. Saif remains a hero to many Libyans who see in him the inheritor of the independent spirit of his father, a man whose education and erudition, and most importantly wartime experience, make him a natural leader. It should be remembered that Saif was the main advocate of the rapprochement between Libya and the West in the early 2000s, spearheading the campaign for Libya’s disarmament of its nuclear and long-range ballistic missiles program. However, by 2011 and the US-NATO illegal war on Libya, Saif had changed his tune, regretting terribly his having taken western leaders at their word. In a now infamous interview with RT conducted in the midst of the NATO war, Saif stated: “Many countries, Iran and North Korea are among them, told us it was our mistake to give up, to have stopped developing long-range missiles and to become friendly with the West. Our example means one should never trust the West and should always be on alert – for them it is fine to change their mind overnight and start bombing Libya…One of our biggest mistakes was that we delayed buying new weapons, especially from Russia, and delayed building a strong army. We thought Europeans were our friends; our mistake was to be tolerant with our enemies.”
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • And today, nearly five years later, Saif remains the chosen son of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya – a man who has endured five years of confinement at the hands of his one-time enemies, who has remained defiant of the US and of its puppet institutions such as the International Criminal Court. His is the man who for so many represents the promise of a better future by symbolizing a better past. And this is why factions inside Libya, and their backers in the US and Europe, are terrified of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi; they understand perfectly what he represents. They know that Saif commands the loyalty and respect of the majority of Libyans, far more than any other single faction. They know that Saif is backed by the most influential tribes in the country, as well as what remains of the Green Resistance which has emerged at key moments in the last few years, including the brief takeover of a critical air base in the southern city of Sabha in January 2014. They know that Saif is the only individual leader left in Libya who can unite the disparate political formations into a single force prepared to finally defeat the jihadist elements backed by the US-NATO. But the fear of Saif runs even deeper than just the theoretical leadership that he represents. Rather, the powers that be fear the political force he already is. When Saif’s death sentence was handed down by a kangaroo court in Tripoli, supporters of Gaddafi (Qadafi – Qaddafi edt) ) and the Jamhiriya took to the streets in Benghazi, Sirte, Bani Walid, and a number of other cities across the country, despite ISIS and Al Qaeda terrorists in control of much of those cities. At the risk of their own lives, these Libyans carried portraits of the assassinated Col. Gaddafi and Saif al-Islam, chanting their names and calling for a restoration of the socialist government. Consider the devotion necessary for followers to risk life and limb in a show of political support. Now imagine what would happen with Saif free.
  • Sources in Libya, and among those who have fled to neighboring countries, as well as Europe, have noted that elements of the former Gaddafi government have been working closely with the Sisi government in Egypt. While it is difficult to confirm independently, such a move is entirely plausible considering the common jihadi enemy both face in Libya which shares a long, porous border with Egypt. Assuming that the collaboration is true, it presents yet another reason why the US and its proxies, to say nothing of the terror groups inside Libya, would greatly fear Saif’s freedom. With the backing of an assertive Egypt, the all-important tribal councils, and elements of the disparate factions on the ground, Saif would instantly become the single most powerful man in Libya. And for those in the West, it is incumbent on everyone to vigorously and publicly defend Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, and to redouble efforts to back him. Saif represents a chance for Libya to be rebuilt, for the country to be pulled from the morass of chaos manufactured by the US and its NATO partners. Saif is the hope of the Libyan people who have suffered unspeakable horrors these last five years. Even those who have no love lost for Gaddafi understand the importance of reconstituting a single, united Libya under a single, united government. Only Saif al-Islam Gaddafi can do that now. And that’s why freedom for Saif might one day mean freedom for Libya.
Gary Edwards

How Did A Single Unconstitutional Agency Become The Most Powerful Organization In America? - 2 views

www.businessinsider.com/ed-is-unconstitutional-2010-11

Abolish-the-Fed Federal-Reserve Jekyll-Island financial-collapse financial-oligarchs Ashvin-Pandurangi Banksters banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 08 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 08 Nov 10
     
    No other country had ever codified the structures and processes of their governing institutions to such an extent in one single document. Many people focus on the Bill of Rights when speaking about the Constitution, but the first four Articles are just as important. They synthesized political ideas that were developed over hundreds of years by some of the most insightful thinkers, such as separation of federal powers, checks and balances, vertical division of powers (federalism), an independent judiciary and, of course, representative democracy. The latter emphasizes the notion that any policies enacted by the federal government must be authorized by the people, through their elected representatives who are held accountable to constituents every few years. So what's the state of our Constitutional democracy today? Simple, it doesn't exist. International corruption surveys typically rank the U.S. higher (less corrupt) than most other countries, but this simply proves how bad these surveys are at capturing the essence of real, hardcore corruption. We could write stacks of books on the prevalence of money in politics and the swarms of lobbyists who descend on Washington every single week, and many people have, but it's simpler to just focus on the most egregious example of corruption. The most powerful, influential economic policy-making institution in the country, the Federal Reserve ("Fed"), is an unelected body that is completely unaccountable to the people. Well, let's back up and start with the fact that this institution's very existence is most likely unconstitutional. Here's why: Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution states that Congress has the power to "coin money" and "regulate the value thereof". The Supreme Court has long held that Congress can delegate its legislative powers to Executive agencies as long as it provides an "intelligible principle" to guide the agencies' acti
Paul Merrell

Edward Snowden: A 'Nation' Interview | The Nation - 0 views

www.thenation.com/...wden-exile-exclusive-interview

surveillance state Snowden-interview

shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • Snowden: That’s the key—to maintain the garden of liberty, right? This is a generational thing that we must all do continuously. We only have the rights that we protect. It doesn’t matter what we say or think we have. It’s not enough to believe in something; it matters what we actually defend. So when we think in the context of the last decade’s infringements upon personal liberty and the last year’s revelations, it’s not about surveillance. It’s about liberty. When people say, “I have nothing to hide,” what they’re saying is, “My rights don’t matter.” Because you don’t need to justify your rights as a citizen—that inverts the model of responsibility. The government must justify its intrusion into your rights. If you stop defending your rights by saying, “I don’t need them in this context” or “I can’t understand this,” they are no longer rights. You have ceded the concept of your own rights. You’ve converted them into something you get as a revocable privilege from the government, something that can be abrogated at its convenience. And that has diminished the measure of liberty within a society.
  • From the very beginning, I said there are two tracks of reform: there’s the political and the technical. I don’t believe the political will be successful, for exactly the reasons you underlined. The issue is too abstract for average people, who have too many things going on in their lives. And we do not live in a revolutionary time. People are not prepared to contest power. We have a system of education that is really a sort of euphemism for indoctrination. It’s not designed to create critical thinkers. We have a media that goes along with the government by parroting phrases intended to provoke a certain emotional response—for example, “national security.” Everyone says “national security” to the point that we now must use the term “national security.” But it is not national security that they’re concerned with; it is state security. And that’s a key distinction. We don’t like to use the phrase “state security” in the United States because it reminds us of all the bad regimes. But it’s a key concept, because when these officials are out on TV, they’re not talking about what’s good for you. They’re not talking about what’s good for business. They’re not talking about what’s good for society. They’re talking about the protection and perpetuation of a national state system. I’m not an anarchist. I’m not saying, “Burn it to the ground.” But I’m saying we need to be aware of it, and we need to be able to distinguish when political developments are occurring that are contrary to the public interest. And that cannot happen if we do not question the premises on which they’re founded. And that’s why I don’t think political reform is likely to succeed. [Senators] Udall and Wyden, on the intelligence committee, have been sounding the alarm, but they are a minority.
  • The Nation: Explain the technical reform you mentioned. Snowden: We already see this happening. The issue I brought forward most clearly was that of mass surveillance, not of surveillance in general. It’s OK if we wiretap Osama bin Laden. I want to know what he’s planning—obviously not him nowadays, but that kind of thing. I don’t care if it’s a pope or a bin Laden. As long as investigators must go to a judge—an independent judge, a real judge, not a secret judge—and make a showing that there’s probable cause to issue a warrant, then they can do that. And that’s how it should be done. The problem is when they monitor all of us, en masse, all of the time, without any specific justification for intercepting in the first place, without any specific judicial showing that there’s a probable cause for that infringement of our rights.
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • The Nation: Every president—and this seems to be confirmed by history—will seek to maximize his or her power, and will see modern-day surveillance as part of that power. Who is going to restrain presidential power in this regard? Snowden: That’s why we have separate and co-equal branches. Maybe it will be Congress, maybe not. Might be the courts, might not. But the idea is that, over time, one of these will get the courage to do so. One of the saddest and most damaging legacies of the Bush administration is the increased assertion of the “state secrets” privilege, which kept organizations like the ACLU—which had cases of people who had actually been tortured and held in indefinite detention—from getting their day in court. The courts were afraid to challenge executive declarations of what would happen. Now, over the last year, we have seen—in almost every single court that has had this sort of national-security case—that they have become markedly more skeptical. People at civil-liberties organizations say it’s a sea change, and that it’s very clear judges have begun to question more critically assertions made by the executive. Even though it seems so obvious now, it is extraordinary in the context of the last decade, because courts had simply said they were not the best branch to adjudicate these claims—which is completely wrong, because they are the only nonpolitical branch. They are the branch that is specifically charged with deciding issues that cannot be impartially decided by politicians. The power of the presidency is important, but it is not determinative. Presidents should not be exempted from the same standards of reason and evidence and justification that any other citizen or civil movement should be held to.
  • Since the revelations, we have seen a massive sea change in the technological basis and makeup of the Internet. One story revealed that the NSA was unlawfully collecting data from the data centers of Google and Yahoo. They were intercepting the transactions of data centers of American companies, which should not be allowed in the first place because American companies are considered US persons, sort of, under our surveillance authorities. They say, “Well, we were doing it overseas,” but that falls under a different Reagan-era authority: EO 12333, an executive order for foreign-intelligence collection, as opposed to the ones we now use domestically. So this one isn’t even authorized by law. It’s just an old-ass piece of paper with Reagan’s signature on it, which has been updated a couple times since then. So what happened was that all of a sudden these massive, behemoth companies realized their data centers—sending hundreds of millions of people’s communications back and forth every day—were completely unprotected, electronically naked. GCHQ, the British spy agency, was listening in, and the NSA was getting the data and everything like that, because they could dodge the encryption that was typically used. Basically, the way it worked technically, you go from your phone to Facebook.com, let’s say—that link is encrypted. So if the NSA is trying to watch it here, they can’t understand it. But what these agencies discovered was, the Facebook site that your phone is connected to is just the front end of a larger corporate network—that’s not actually where the data comes from. When you ask for your Facebook page, you hit this part and it’s protected, but it has to go on this long bounce around the world to actually get what you’re asking for and go back. So what they did was just get out of the protected part and they went onto the back network. They went into the private network of these companies.
  • The Nation: The companies knew this? Snowden: Companies did not know it. They said, “Well, we gave the NSA the front door; we gave you the PRISM program. You could get anything you wanted from our companies anyway—all you had to do was ask us and we’re gonna give it to you.” So the companies couldn’t have imagined that the intelligence communities would break in the back door, too—but they did, because they didn’t have to deal with the same legal process as when they went through the front door. When this was published by Barton Gellman in The Washington Post and the companies were exposed, Gellman printed a great anecdote: he showed two Google engineers a slide that showed how the NSA was doing this, and the engineers “exploded in profanity.” Another example—one document I revealed was the classified inspector general’s report on a Bush surveillance operation, Stellar Wind, which basically showed that the authorities knew it was unlawful at the time. There was no statutory basis; it was happening basically on the president’s say-so and a secret authorization that no one was allowed to see. When the DOJ said, “We’re not gonna reauthorize this because it is not lawful,” Cheney—or one of Cheney’s advisers—went to Michael Hayden, director of the NSA, and said, “There is no lawful basis for this program. DOJ is not going to reauthorize it, and we don’t know what we’re going to do. Will you continue it anyway on the president’s say-so?” Hayden said yes, even though he knew it was unlawful and the DOJ was against it. Nobody has read this document because it’s like twenty-eight pages long, even though it’s incredibly important.
  • The big tech companies understood that the government had not only damaged American principles, it had hurt their businesses. They thought, “No one trusts our products anymore.” So they decided to fix these security flaws to secure their phones. The new iPhone has encryption that protects the contents of the phone. This means if someone steals your phone—if a hacker or something images your phone—they can’t read what’s on the phone itself, they can’t look at your pictures, they can’t see the text messages you send, and so forth. But it does not stop law enforcement from tracking your movements via geolocation on the phone if they think you are involved in a kidnapping case, for example. It does not stop law enforcement from requesting copies of your texts from the providers via warrant. It does not stop them from accessing copies of your pictures or whatever that are uploaded to, for example, Apple’s cloud service, which are still legally accessible because those are not encrypted. It only protects what’s physically on the phone. This is purely a security feature that protects against the kind of abuse that can happen with all these things being out there undetected. In response, the attorney general and the FBI director jumped on a soap box and said, “You are putting our children at risk.”
  • The Nation: Is there a potential conflict between massive encryption and the lawful investigation of crimes? Snowden: This is the controversy that the attorney general and the FBI director were trying to create. They were suggesting, “We have to be able to have lawful access to these devices with a warrant, but that is technically not possible on a secure device. The only way that is possible is if you compromise the security of the device by leaving a back door.” We’ve known that these back doors are not secure. I talk to cryptographers, some of the leading technologists in the world, all the time about how we can deal with these issues. It is not possible to create a back door that is only accessible, for example, to the FBI. And even if it were, you run into the same problem with international commerce: if you create a device that is famous for compromised security and it has an American back door, nobody is gonna buy it. Anyway, it’s not true that the authorities cannot access the content of the phone even if there is no back door. When I was at the NSA, we did this every single day, even on Sundays. I believe that encryption is a civic responsibility, a civic duty.
  • The Nation: You really think that if you could go home tomorrow with complete immunity, there wouldn’t be irresistible pressure on you to become a spokesperson, even an activist, on behalf of our rights and liberties? Indeed, wouldn’t that now be your duty? Snowden: But the idea for me now—because I’m not a politician, and I do not think I am as effective in this way as people who actually prepare for it—is to focus on technical reform, because I speak the language of technology. I spoke with Tim Berners-Lee, the guy who invented the World Wide Web. We agree on the necessity for this generation to create what he calls the Magna Carta for the Internet. We want to say what “digital rights” should be. What values should we be protecting, and how do we assert them? What I can do—because I am a technologist, and because I actually understand how this stuff works under the hood—is to help create the new systems that reflect our values. Of course I want to see political reform in the United States. But we could pass the best surveillance reforms, the best privacy protections in the history of the world, in the United States, and it would have zero impact internationally. Zero impact in China and in every other country, because of their national laws—they won’t recognize our reforms; they’ll continue doing their own thing. But if someone creates a reformed technical system today—technical standards must be identical around the world for them to function together.
  • The Nation: Creating a new system may be your transition, but it’s also a political act. Snowden: In case you haven’t noticed, I have a somewhat sneaky way of effecting political change. I don’t want to directly confront great powers, which we cannot defeat on their terms. They have more money, more clout, more airtime. We cannot be effective without a mass movement, and the American people today are too comfortable to adapt to a mass movement. But as inequality grows, the basic bonds of social fraternity are fraying—as we discussed in regard to Occupy Wall Street. As tensions increase, people will become more willing to engage in protest. But that moment is not now.
  • The Nation: Some years ago, The Nation did a special issue on patriotism. We asked about a hundred people how they define it. How do you define patriotism? And related to that, you’re probably the world’s most famous whistleblower, though you don’t like that term. What characterization of your role do you prefer? Snowden: What defines patriotism, for me, is the idea that one rises to act on behalf of one’s country. As I said before, that’s distinct from acting to benefit the government—a distinction that’s increasingly lost today. You’re not patriotic just because you back whoever’s in power today or their policies. You’re patriotic when you work to improve the lives of the people of your country, your community and your family. Sometimes that means making hard choices, choices that go against your personal interest. People sometimes say I broke an oath of secrecy—one of the early charges leveled against me. But it’s a fundamental misunderstanding, because there is no oath of secrecy for people who work in the intelligence community. You are asked to sign a civil agreement, called a Standard Form 312, which basically says if you disclose classified information, they can sue you; they can do this, that and the other. And you risk going to jail. But you are also asked to take an oath, and that’s the oath of service. The oath of service is not to secrecy, but to the Constitution—to protect it against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That’s the oath that I kept, that James Clapper and former NSA director Keith Alexander did not. You raise your hand and you take the oath in your class when you are on board. All government officials are made to do it who work for the intelligence agencies—at least, that’s where I took the oath.
  • As for labeling someone a whistleblower, I think it does them—it does all of us—a disservice, because it “otherizes” us. Using the language of heroism, calling Daniel Ellsberg a hero, and calling the other people who made great sacrifices heroes—even though what they have done is heroic—is to distinguish them from the civic duty they performed, and excuses the rest of us from the same civic duty to speak out when we see something wrong, when we witness our government engaging in serious crimes, abusing power, engaging in massive historic violations of the Constitution of the United States. We have to speak out or we are party to that bad action.
  • The Nation: Considering your personal experience—the risks you took, and now your fate here in Moscow—do you think other young men or women will be inspired or discouraged from doing what you did? Snowden: Chelsea Manning got thirty-five years in prison, while I’m still free. I talk to people in the ACLU office in New York all the time. I’m able to participate in the debate and to campaign for reform. I’m just the first to come forward in the manner that I did and succeed. When governments go too far to punish people for actions that are dissent rather than a real threat to the nation, they risk delegitimizing not just their systems of justice, but the legitimacy of the government itself. Because when they bring political charges against people for acts that were clearly at least intended to work in the public interest, they deny them the opportunity to mount a public-interest defense. The charges they brought against me, for example, explicitly denied my ability to make a public-interest defense. There were no whistleblower protections that would’ve protected me—and that’s known to everybody in the intelligence community. There are no proper channels for making this information available when the system fails comprehensively.
  • The government would assert that individuals who are aware of serious wrongdoing in the intelligence community should bring their concerns to the people most responsible for that wrongdoing, and rely on those people to correct the problems that those people themselves authorized. Going all the way back to Daniel Ellsberg, it is clear that the government is not concerned with damage to national security, because in none of these cases was there damage. At the trial of Chelsea Manning, the government could point to no case of specific damage that had been caused by the massive revelation of classified information. The charges are a reaction to the government’s embarrassment more than genuine concern about these activities, or they would substantiate what harms were done. We’re now more than a year since my NSA revelations, and despite numerous hours of testimony before Congress, despite tons of off-the-record quotes from anonymous officials who have an ax to grind, not a single US official, not a single representative of the United States government, has ever pointed to a single case of individualized harm caused by these revelations. This, despite the fact that former NSA director Keith Alexander said this would cause grave and irrevocable harm to the nation. Some months after he made that statement, the new director of the NSA, Michael Rogers, said that, in fact, he doesn’t see the sky falling. It’s not so serious after all.
  • The Nation: We have a sense, or certainly the hope, we’ll be seeing you in America soon—perhaps sometime after this Ukrainian crisis ends. Snowden: I would love to think that, but we’ve gone all the way up the chain at all the levels, and things like that. A political decision has been made not to irritate the intelligence community. The spy agencies are really embarrassed, they’re really sore—the revelations really hurt their mystique. The last ten years, they were getting the Zero Dark Thirty treatment—they’re the heroes. The surveillance revelations bring them back to Big Brother kind of narratives, and they don’t like that at all. The Obama administration almost appears as though it is afraid of the intelligence community. They’re afraid of death by a thousand cuts—you know, leaks and things like that.
  • The Nation: You also remind us of [Manhattan Project physicist] Robert Oppenheimer—what he created and then worried about. Snowden: Someone recently talked about mass surveillance and the NSA revelations as being the atomic moment for computer scientists. The atomic bomb was the moral moment for physicists. Mass surveillance is the same moment for computer scientists, when they realize that the things they produce can be used to harm a tremendous number of people. It is interesting that so many people who become disenchanted, who protest against their own organizations, are people who contributed something to them and then saw how it was misused. When I was working in Japan, I created a system for ensuring that intelligence data was globally recoverable in the event of a disaster. I was not aware of the scope of mass surveillance. I came across some legal questions when I was creating it. My superiors pushed back and were like, “Well, how are we going to deal with this data?” And I was like, “I didn’t even know it existed.” Later, when I found out that we were collecting more information on American communications than we were on Russian communications, for example, I was like, “Holy shit.” Being confronted with the realization that work you intended to benefit people is being used against them has a radicalizing effect.
  • The Nation: You’ve given us a lot of time, and we are very grateful, as will be The Nation’s and other readers. But before we end, any more thoughts about your future? Snowden: If I had to guess what the future’s going to look like for me—assuming it’s not an orange jumpsuit in a hole—I think I’m going to alternate between tech and policy. I think we need that. I think that’s actually what’s missing from government, for the most part. We’ve got a lot of policy people, but we have no technologists, even though technology is such a big part of our lives. It’s just amazing, because even these big Silicon Valley companies, the masters of the universe or whatever, haven’t engaged with Washington until recently. They’re still playing catch-up. As for my personal politics, some people seem to think I’m some kind of archlibertarian, a hyper-conservative. But when it comes to social policies, I believe women have the right to make their own choices, and inequality is a really important issue. As a technologist, I see the trends, and I see that automation inevitably is going to mean fewer and fewer jobs. And if we do not find a way to provide a basic income for people who have no work, or no meaningful work, we’re going to have social unrest that could get people killed. When we have increasing production—year after year after year—some of that needs to be reinvested in society. It doesn’t need to be consistently concentrated in these venture-capital funds and things like that. I’m not a communist, a socialist or a radical. But these issues have to be 
addressed.
  • Paul Merrell on 30 Oct 14
     
    Remarkable interview. Snowden finally gets asked some questions about politics. 
Gary Edwards

DHS insider update: "It has begun" « Northeast Intelligence NetworkNortheast ... - 1 views

www.homelandsecurityus.com/...7978

Cypress-bank-tax Globalist Banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 18 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 18 Mar 13
     
    The forced confiscation of citizen savings held in Cypress bank accounts is a test by the International Bank to see if people will roll over or fight.  The Global elites are ready to pull the trigger on world wide economic collapse, and they're testing to see what the response will be. clip: "According to the most recent information provided to me from my source within the Department of Homeland Security known as "Rosebud," the final preparations are being made to deploy heavily armed federalized forces onto the streets of America. They will be deployed under the pretext of "restoring and maintaining order from the chaos brought about by the economic collapse," adding that "many will demand and embrace their deployment on the streets of America. They will get what they ask for, and more." Much like the security theater we have seen following the attacks of 9/11, we will be subjected to the jack-booted control of a federal army whose allegiance is not to the American people, but to the very architects of the chaos. "This is the reason that drones are flying over U.S. cities and farmland, and gun control legislation is on the fast track for complete implementation," stated this source. "How can people look at the situation in Cyprus and not think it won't happen here? It will, and the blowback will be unlike this country has ever seen. Surveillance, disarming the public, and conditioning the people to believe it's for their own safety is and has been  part of the plan all along. Anyone owing a gun will be demonized and described as contributing to the problem." "What happens when the middle class loses much of their wealth, or it is confiscated, by the stroke of a pen or a keyboard? What will the stores look like when people, unprepared due to the damn lies of the corporate media and the shills for the ruling elite, run to empty out everything they can get their hands on as the world, as they know it, collapses around them?" It was
Gary Edwards

» 21 Facts About NSA Snooping That Every American Should Know Alex Jones' Inf... - 0 views

www.infowars.com/hat-every-american-should-know

NSA-Patriot-Act-NDAA NSA-Whistleblower PRISM Echelon-SIGINT

shared by Gary Edwards on 18 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 18 Jun 13
     
    NSA-PRISM-Echelon in a nutshell.  The list below is a short sample.  Each fact is documented, and well worth the time reading. "The following are 21 facts about NSA snooping that every American should know…" #1 According to CNET, the NSA told Congress during a recent classified briefing that it does not need court authorization to listen to domestic phone calls… #2 According to U.S. Representative Loretta Sanchez, members of Congress learned "significantly more than what is out in the media today" about NSA snooping during that classified briefing. #3 The content of all of our phone calls is being recorded and stored.  The following is a from a transcript of an exchange between Erin Burnett of CNN and former FBI counterterrorism agent Tim Clemente which took place just last month… #4 The chief technology officer at the CIA, Gus Hunt, made the following statement back in March… "We fundamentally try to collect everything and hang onto it forever." #5 During a Senate Judiciary Oversight Committee hearing in March 2011, FBI Director Robert Mueller admitted that the intelligence community has the ability to access emails "as they come in"… #6 Back in 2007, Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell told Congress that the president has the "constitutional authority" to authorize domestic spying without warrants no matter when the law says. #7 The Director Of National Intelligence James Clapper recently told Congress that the NSA was not collecting any information about American citizens.  When the media confronted him about his lie, he explained that he "responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful manner". #8 The Washington Post is reporting that the NSA has four primary data collection systems… MAINWAY, MARINA, METADATA, PRISM #9 The NSA knows pretty much everything that you are doing on the Internet.  The following is a short excerpt from a recent Yahoo article… #10 The NSA is suppose
Paul Merrell

UPDATE: Julian Assange of Wikileaks To Appear by Video Tomorrow Due to Assassination Co... - 0 views

heatst.com/...pparent-assassination-concerns

war & peace Wikileaks Assange Auction 2016 Hillary leak

shared by Paul Merrell on 04 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • After canceling a planned announcement in London, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is now planning to appear via video link Tuesday morning at Wikileaks’ 10th anniversary celebration in Berlin. He’s a last-minute addition to the roster of festivities taking place this week in Germany. The change in venue appears to be related to what Wikileaks is clearly implying to be a perceived threat on Assange’s life.
  • Wikileaks used its Facebook page and Twitter to confirm that Assange would speak at the event, which starts at 4am Eastern time. An information pack published by Wikileaks late last night includes a running order which schedules Assange’s appearance for 5am Eastern (11am in Berlin):
  • According to Wikileaks, the change of venue was made “due to specific information.” Wikileaks did not specify further, but Monday’s Tweet followed several in which Wikileaks alleged that the Clinton camp wants to assassinate Assange.
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  • The news that Assange plans to appear (remotely) in Berlin comes after Wikileaks abruptly canceled a much-anticipated announcement in London that was to be made from the balcony of London’s Ecuadorian Embassy, where Assange has sought sanctuary for years. The cancelation was first reported by NBC News. According to NBC’s Jesse Rodriguez, the announcement was canceled due to “security concerns”. There had been widespread anticipating that Tuesday’s announcement might have been Assange’s long-promised document dump on Hillary Clinton. Assange appeared on Fox News last month, repeating his assertion that Wikileaks has damaging documents on Clinton and suggested WikiLeaks may soon release “teasers”. More than three weeks later, that release has yet to take place. Clinton’s more fervent opponents have hoped for weeks that the promised document dump would be an “October surprise” — damaging and revelatory emails or the like — and inflict a mortal wound on her campaign. There’s no evidence, however, that such damaging information even exists. It was only this summer that Assange’s group leaked thousands of embarrassing emails from the Democratic National Committee which showed their disdain for Bernie Sanders’ insurgent campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. The uproar over the disclosures forced DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to resign in disgrace on the eve of the Democratic National Convention.
  • Assange and his supporters have long claimed that his personal safety is at risk due to the danger he (supposedly) represents to Clinton’s presidential ambitions. Monday morning, Wikileaks via Twitter was promoting the conspiracy theory that Clinton herself has sought to rub out Assange.
  • Assange himself has also recently hinted publicly that low-level DNC staffer Seth Rich, who was murdered this summer in Washington DC, had been the source for Wikileaks’ document dump on the DNC. And that Rich’s alleged role in the leaks was linked to his death. There has been no evidence linking Rich to the leak and no evidence that his murder was anything more than a botched robbery. Nonetheless, the Wikileaks’ cancellation of Tuesday’s announcement in London — and the scheduling of the Tuesday video link in Berlin — has anti-Clinton conspiracy theorists working up a frantic stew of speculation.
  • Paul Merrell on 04 Oct 16
     
    So Assange is speaking at 5 a.m. Wednesday morning East Coast tIme. Probably some headlines by 6 a.m. So 3 a.m. West Coast time. Let's hope this is Assange's October Surprise announcement for Hillary. "Specific concerns" about security on the canceled Ecuadoran Embassy speech? Well, Hillary reportedly made a specific assassination proposal for Assange. Personally, I wouldn't put it past her; the Clintons already have the blood of millions on their hands.
Gary Edwards

George Soros on the Coming U.S. Class War:      Information Clearing House - 0 views

www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30347.htm

George-Soros Banksters Davos-elites Illuminati New-World-Order

shared by Gary Edwards on 25 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 25 Jan 12
     
    Excellent story on George Soros, the epitome of evil.  The man who seeks to destroy America and the ideals of individual liberty and natural rights.  Of course, Soros claims to be anything but the evil Bankster who backs Obama and international ruling elites seeking to take out the American Constitution, and replace it with a socialist-militarist-corporatist governance under the command and control of international Banksters. One thing not covered in this story is how the reptillion Soros rose within the ranks of the Bankster illuminati?  Who staked his 1972 hedge fund innovation?  Who helped him escape first National Socialism, and then International Socialism, to become the primary mover of a new International socialism run by international Banksters?  excerpt: To many, the idea of Soros lecturing the world on "evil" is, well, rich. Here, after all, is an investor who proved-and profited hugely from-the now much-derided notion that the market, or in his case a single investor, is more powerful than sovereign governments. He broke the Bank of England, destroyed the Conservative Party's reputation for economic competence, and reduced the value of the pound in British consumers' pockets by one fifth in a single day. Soros the currency speculator has been condemned as "unnecessary, unproductive, immoral." Mahathir Mohamad, former prime minister of Malaysia, once called him "criminal" and "a moron." In the U.S., where the right still has not forgiven him for agitating against President George W. Bush and the "war on terror" after 9/11, which he described as "pernicious," his prediction of riots on the streets-"it's already started," he says-will likely spark fresh criticism that Soros is a "far-left, radical bomb thrower," as Bill O'Reilly once put it. Critics already allege he is stoking the fires by funding the Occupy movement through Adbusters, the Canadian provocateurs who sparked the movement. Not so, says So
Paul Merrell

Espionage Act Case Was "Overcharged," Defense Says | Federation Of American Scientists - 0 views

fas.org/...esp-act-overcharged

war & peace Espionage-Act over-charging

shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • In 2012, former Navy linguist James F. Hitselberger was indicted on two felony counts under the Espionage Act statutes after several classified documents were found in his possession. In 2013, a superseding indictment charged him with another four felony counts. But in the end, Mr. Hitselberger pleaded guilty this year to a single misdemeanor charge of removing classified documents without authorization. Now both the defense and the prosecution are endorsing Hitselberger’s request that any jail penalty be limited to the time he has already served, including two months in DC jail and eight months of home confinement. The sentencing hearing is scheduled for July 17. Despite the stark disparity between the multiple felony counts with which Hitselberger was charged, and the single misdemeanor of which he was convicted, the prosecution said that it had no second thoughts about the way the matter was handled.
  • “It is important to note that the government’s case against Mr. Hitselberger did not collapse,” prosecutors said in a June 27 sentencing memorandum. To the contrary, prosecutors wrote, “in several ways, the government’s case became stronger than what it had been when the charges were first obtained.” Defense attorneys disputed that assertion and said the government had overreached. “At a minimum, the evidence demonstrates that the government significantly overcharged the case, and the guilty plea to a misdemeanor not only was the appropriate result, but also demonstrates how the offense should have been charged from the beginning,” the defense wrote in a June 27 reply. The mountain of Espionage Act charges that yielded a molehill of a misdemeanor in this case recalls a similar progression in the prosecution of former NSA official Thomas Drake, where ten felony counts gave way to a technical misdemeanor. This recurring pattern may indicate that overcharging is a standard prosecutorial approach to such cases, or that the judicial process is effectively winnowing out excessive felony charges, or perhaps both.
  • A June 26 sentencing memorandum submitted by the defense presented its own account of the facts of the case, along with several moving testimonials from Hitselberger’s friends and relatives as to his character. In another pending Espionage Act case, the Obama Administration must decide if it will pursue a subpoena against New York Times reporter James Risen. For a current update, see Reporter’s Case Poses Dilemma for Justice Dept. by Jonathan Mahler, New York Times, June 27.
  • Paul Merrell on 30 Jun 14
     
    Charged with 6 Espionage Act felonies, plea-bargained down to a single misdemeanor and recommended sentence of time served. Reading the linked court documents, it was a case that should have resulted in a verbal reprimand by the military commander. 
Paul Merrell

Another Gaza Hospital Hit by Israeli Strike; Four Dead, 40 Hurt - NBC News.com - 0 views

www.nbcnews.com/...rike-four-dead-40-hurt-n161086

Israel Gaza Palestine war crimes hospitals

shared by Paul Merrell on 21 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • AZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Israeli forces fired a tank shell at a hospital in Gaza on Monday, killing at least four people and injuring 40 others, health officials said. It was the third hospital Israel's military has struck since launching a ground offensive in Gaza last week. advertisement The four people killed at al-Aqsa Hospital on Monday included one patient and three visitors, health officials told NBC News. Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra told Reuters that the tank shell hit the third floor of the building that houses an intensive care unit and operating rooms.
  • The Hamas-run al-Aqsa TV station showed chaotic footage from the scene, including what it said was an ambulance driver being wheeled inside on a stretcher and a doctor with a neck wound. Speaking to the station, deputy hospital manager Dr. Faiz Zaidan said: "I urge the Red Cross and its hospitals to come and transfer as many cases as possible, we have nothing to offer to patients." He added that shrapnel had been found in the facility's reception area. Another doctor, who was not identified, added: "The Israeli aggression, they could not find any targets to hit, so they started hitting hospital, hitting patients."
  • Israel has defended shelling civilian-inhabited areas where Hamas allegedly hides rockets. The strike came just hours after charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said health workers in Gaza were coming under fire and urged Israel to stop its strikes. Gaza's Wafa hospital was evacuated and then "obliterated" by more than 15 direct hits from Israeli forces on Friday, senior nurse Ali Hassan said in an interview with the U.K.'s Channel 4 News.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • More than 500 Palestinians, most of whom were civilians, and 20 Israeli soldiers have died during two weeks of bombing as well as a ground invasion launched into Gaza on Thursday.
  • Paul Merrell on 21 Jul 14
     
    Israel racked up over 100 kills in less than 24 hours over the weekend. From other reports, they have also been targeting ambulances ("Hamas uses them to transport rockets."). Most kills with a single bomb so far, 24 members of a single family just sitting down to dinner. Gaza dead now tally over 500 with over 3,100 wounded.   
Joseph Skues

Single-Payer Health Insurance - 0 views

www.exponentialimprovement.com/...singlepayer.shtml

health payer single POWELL finacial-crisis obama-socialism

shared by Joseph Skues on 16 Jul 10 - Cached
  • Yes, it is. And here's why.
  • Justice
  • common defence
  • ...38 more annotations...
  • Welfare,
  • Tranquility,
  • Posterity
  • Blessings of Liberty
  • general Welfare
  • common Defence
  • "health, happiness, or prosperity; well-being" of "We the People".
  • 45,000 deaths annually
  • necessary to prevent system failure
  • are capitalized to emphasize their importance
  • defense" was not capitalized.
  • which would take the profit motive that insurance corporations have to deny coverage & claims out of the system
  • defines our political system, which is a different thing entirely
  • they have never believed in democracy as noted at The Conservative Mind
  • With only 4 decades of testing America simply cannot afford to join this dangerous experiment
  • In comments they show their obvious ignorance
  • Welfare
  • 40 percent higher death risk than privately insured counterparts
  • up from a 25 percent excess death rate found in 1993. ...
  • David Frum, a "conservative", refused to acknowledge the Harvard University
  • Don't like a result? Ignore it.
  • not implementing single-payer health insurance
  • mass murder.
  • makes our economy less competitive
  • discourages U.S. innovation,
  • twice as much per capita
  • obscene
  • bankrupts
  • leads to the deaths of 100,000 persons/year
  • because the U.S. system isn't as good as that of France.
  • A "public option"
  • doesn't go far enoug
  • The only workable approach is a single-payer health insurance system ... a "Medicare for All" system.
  • scrap a privatized health insurance system that does not work
  • It's pragmatic. See Health Care Dynamics.
  • The California Nurses Association understands
  • t's a useless industry
  • US Healthcare History: Our Very Own Killing Fields
Gary Edwards

20 Ways The Economy Has Gotten Worse Since Barack Obama Became President - 0 views

www.businessinsider.com/otten-worse-under-obama-2011-6

obammunism financial-collapse Federal-Reserve banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 10 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 10 Jun 11
     
    Wow!  Blockbuster stuff.... excerpt: Barack Obama is proving to be one of the worst presidents in all of U.S. history.  Perhaps when it is all said and done he will be recognized as the absolute worst.  Not that George W. Bush was much different.  In fact, the Republican Party will not regain much credibility with the American people until it admits that George W. Bush was an absolutely horrible president.  Sadly, the truth is that we have not had a decent president in decades.  This statement is going to upset almost everyone that is still trapped inside the false left/right political paradigm in this country, but I am not here to pander to the political establishment. Barack Obama is a horrific president. So was George W. Bush. That is the truth. Not that it is our presidents that actually run our economy.  As far as the economy is concerned, the U.S. Congress deserves as much (or more) of the blame as the executive branch does. However, if you really want to point fingers at someone, then you should place the most blame on the Federal Reserve. As I have written about previously, the Federal Reserve has more power over our economy that any other single institution.... So exactly what is the Federal Reserve?  Most people would say that it is an agency of the federal government.  But that is absolutely not true.  In fact, the Federal Reserve itself has argued in court that it is not an agency of the federal government.  Rather, the Federal Reserve is a privately-owned banking cartel that has been given a perpetual monopoly over our monetary system by the U.S. Congress.  This privately-owned central bank has been destroying the value of the U.S. dollar for decades, it has run our economy into the ground and it has driven the U.S. government to the brink of bankruptcy.  The Federal Reserve operates in great secrecy, it has never been subjected to a comprehensive audit and it is not accountable to the American people.  Yet the decisions that the Federal
Paul Merrell

'If UN Recognizes Palestine, Israel Must Annex' - Inside Israel - News - Arutz Sheva - 0 views

www.israelnationalnews.com/...189177

war & peace Israel Palestine Likud Danon U.N.

shared by Paul Merrell on 28 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • Likud Central Committee chairman Danny Danon, who is challenging Binyamin Netanyahu for leadership of the party, on Saturday night called on Israel to respond to an expected UN recognition of the Palestinian Authority (PA) as the "state of Palestine" by declaring sovereignty in Judea and Samaria. "We must clarify in the clearest terms to the world that every unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state will bring Israeli sovereignty," declared Danon in a meeting with Likud activists in Judea's Gush Etzion region.
  • Erekat announced last Friday that the UN will likely vote on Monday on a unilateral PA resolution, which demands recognition, Israeli withdrawals from eastern Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria by 2017, and prior to that a 12-month deadline for wrapping up negotiations on a final settlement. "If on this coming Monday the UN recognizes a Palestinian state, the state of Israel must respond with unilateral steps (as well), including implementing sovereignty," declared Danon.
  • Two weeks ago the European Parliament voted to recognize "Palestine," following a string of European nations voting to recognize the PA as a state - the parliamentary vote came the same day Hamas was removed from the European Union's (EU) official terrorist organization list on an alleged "technicality."
  • Paul Merrell on 28 Dec 14
     
    Benjamin Netanyahu is facing difficulties in the new Israeli election because of single-digit popularity ratings. But his Likud Party is still expected to be tapped post-election to form a new ruling coalition. Thus the world needs to worry about who is running against Netanyahu and the positions that person, Danny Danon, takes.  Here, Danon paints himself into the corner of annexing the entire West Bank as Israeli territory if the U.N. Security Council recognizes the Palestinian Authority as the "state of Palestine" in a vote expected on Monday. But he may find himself in a position where he has to face the impact of this statement.  The U.S. has been unusually elusive on whether it will exercise its veto power on the proposed Resolution, saying only that it "does not support" the Resolution, which is diplomaticspeak for "we may abstain from voting."   The Resolution, although presented by the PA, was actually drafted by the French. The EU Parliament just went on record as supporting Palestinian statehood. And there seems to be growing recognition among Israel's friends in the U.S. that the nation needs to be rescued from itself, before the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions Movement does away with the Israeli state as part of its advocated single-state solution. BDS is approaching the strength of its predecessor organization that broke the back of the apartheid state of South Africa. I would not be surprised if the resolution passes with a U.S. abstention.  If that happens, watch for extreme fireworks in Israel and Palestine. The Israeli settlers in Palestine are violent, radical, and their interests in retaining their settlements rule Israeli politics. The last published draft of the resolution sets a 2017 deadline for conclusion of peace negotiations, borders along the pre-1967 borderline, a freeze on further Israeli colonization of the West Bank, retuirn of water rights, and recognition of an independent Palestine state government.   What Israel wants,
Paul Merrell

Jordan submits UN draft on Palestinians; Lieberman: Act of aggression - Diplomacy and D... - 0 views

www.haaretz.com/...1.632456

UNSC Palestine Israel draft-resolution EU France U.S.-foreign-policy

shared by Paul Merrell on 21 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • Jordan late Wednesday submitted a draft United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an end to the Israeli occupation by 2017, on behalf of the Palestinian leadership. After a day of closed-door negotiations among Arab members of the United Nations, Jordan, which represents Arab countries on the Security Council, put the draft resolution "in blue," meaning the text of the draft has been finalized and could be put to a vote 24 hours later.
  • Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki said that the resolution submitted by Jordan was a French-sponsored version of the draft, not the one originally phrased by the Palestinians and the Arab League. The resolution sets a two-year deadline to reach a solution to the Palestinian issue, Al-Malki told Voice of Palestine Radio. "France said it wants to go to the Security Council with us because the proposal will deal with all the problems that existed over the past 20 years of negotiations," al-Malki said. "It believes a ceiling to end negotiations and end the occupation is the best process now, because direct negotiations have proven to be futile." Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Thursday that the submission of the draft amounted to an act of aggression.
  • Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is trying to censure Israel, Lieberman said, a process he added would have no benefit for the Palestinians but rather worsen the regional council. Such a measure will not advance steps toward a permanent agreement, Lieberman added, as without Israel's consent, nothing will change.
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  • Earlier on Wednesday, the European Parliament accepted, with a large majority, a decision expressing support "in principle" of the recognition of a Palestinian state, along with furthering negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Some 498 parliamentarians voted in favor of the motion, 88 voted against it, and 111 abstained. On Tuesday, the U.S. clarified that it would be willing to support a United Nations Security Council proposal on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, as long as it contains "no unilateral measures" that would predetermine the outcome of diplomatic negotiations. State Department Spokesman Jen Psaki said that if the wording of the resolution included terms of reference for negotiations on the core issues, the United States would accept it, and not view it as a unilateral move.
  • Paul Merrell on 21 Dec 14
     
    Smoke and mirrors. The EU, France, and the U.S. are trying to rescue Israel from the inevitable single-state solution if an independent Palestinian state is not recognized very soon. But Israel's bellicose government resists even that; it wants to annex the entirety of Palestine by pushing all the Muslim Palestinians out, one new settlement at a time. Meanwhile, the Palestine Authority threatens to join more treaties, including that for the International Criminal Court, and mumbles about ending its policing of the West Bank for Israel. And the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, which is seeking a single state solution, gains momentum at an accelerating rate globally, which is what is driving all these diplomatic machinations.
Paul Merrell

Even as Clinton opposes sanctions over Israeli settlements, new poll shows her Democrat... - 0 views

mondoweiss.net/...nctions-settlements-democratic

war & peace Auction 2016 Israel Palestine BDS polls Hillary

shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Last weekend Hillary Clinton joined the Republican candidates in coming down hard against Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel. Speaking to her financial sponsor Haim Saban as well as a D.C. audience, she described the campaign as anti-semitic and wrong, and meantime offered vague opposition to Israeli settlements. Well there’s a good reason Clinton doesn’t want the issue politicized. If the matter were actually debated openly between Republicans and Democrats, her own base would be against her. A new poll of American attitudes on the conflict from Shibley Telhami at the Brookings Institution says that Democrats favor sanctions to counter Israeli settlement construction. Telhami reports: It is notable that among Democrats, more people (49%) recommend either imposing economic sanctions or taking more serious action [re settlements], than those recommending doing nothing or limiting U.S. opposition towards (46%)
  • The poll also shows broad support for a one-state outcome among Americans. The poll at Telhami’s academic site defines one state as “a single democratic state in which both Jews and Arabs are full and equal citizens, covering all of what is now Israel and the Palestinian Territories.” Those who advocate a one-state solution, 31%, are now comparable to those who advocate a two-state solution, 35%. The most notable change is that Republicans this year equally support a two-state solution vs. one-state solution (29% each). This shows that Democrats support a two-state-solution over one state by 45 to 33. Still: a third of Dem voters are for a single democratic state with equal citizenship. Dems don’t like the Israel lobby either. The poll shows that by more than a three-to-one ratio, Democrats feel that Israel has too much influence in American politics. And Americans generally also are turned off:
  • Overall, twice as many Americans say the Israeli government has too much influence (37%) than say too little influence (18%), while a plurality (44 %) say it’s the right level. The story once again is more pronounced in the partisan views: Among Democrats, about half (49%) say Israel has too much influence, compared with 14% who say Israel has too little influence, and 36 % who say it’s the right level. Netanyahu’s popularity has crashed among Dems, though he’s a heroic figure to Republicans. Notice that Democratic attitudes on blame for the recent “escalation in violence” actually track attitudes on our site. Democrats understand the Palestinian violence as a response to lack of freedom: A plurality of Democrats, 37%, blame continued Israeli occupation and settlement expansion, followed by 35% who blame the absence of serious peace diplomacy, while 15% blame Palestinian extremists. In contrast, 40% of Republicans blame Palestinian extremists first…
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  • And again, Americans are for a secular democracy there. Where did we ever get that idea? Strong American majorities continue to favor Israel’s democracy over its Jewishness in the absence of a two-state solution (72% in 2015, compared with 71% in 2014). Hillary Clinton has very different attitudes. She calls Israel “a thriving raucous democracy” and a “light unto the nations,” and is fundamentally opposed to the idea of any pressure on Israel. She said: Some proponents of BDS may hope that pressuring Israel may lead to peace. Well that’s wrong too. No outside force is going to resolve the conflict between Israeli’s and Palestinian’s.
  • Paul Merrell on 11 Dec 15
     
    "Negotiations" for a two-state solution has never been anything more than an excuse for prolonging an apartheid government across all of Palestine. The fact that public support is building in the U.S. for a single-state, secular government for all of Palestine including Israel has to be keeping Israel's right-wing leadership up at night. Israel is losing the BDS battle for U.S. hearts and minds. Hillary risks eroding her support by continuing to push for the increasingly unpopular two-state solution.
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