[StateChamp]

plain and simple. 5 more attacks like boston and ppl will be begging for martial law. anyone on a fema camp list at that time goes. so if the attacks keep rolling in then we know it could be holocaust city. just like every super power ever

[PAULYPOKER]

The 1st mutherfukkers that begs for Marshall law, I'll **** them myself..........

[PAULYPOKER]

‘FBI, judiciary repressing dissent in US’

The FBI and the judiciary are constantly working in coordination to “repress” any dissent in the United States., says Joe Isobaker, member of the Committee to Stop FBI Repression.

On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that the Obama administration is on the verge of backing an FBI plan for a sweeping overhaul of surveillance laws that would make it easier to wiretap people who communicate using the Internet rather than by traditional phone services.

“This new law would punish companies that don’t comply,” said Isobaker in a phone interview with the U.S. Desk on Wednesday.

The FBI’s original proposal would have required Internet communications services to build in a wiretapping capacity. However, the revised one, being reviewed by the White House, concentrates on fining companies that do not comply with wiretap orders.

The proposal comes against the backdrop of other intrusive measures like the expansion of domestic drones, CCTV cameras, and tapping cell-phones.

“In my personal experience, the FBI and the Judiciary are both involved in the repression that is coming down on those of us who dare challenge the powers that be,” said Isobaker.

“The government is always doing one of two things. They are either repressing dissent or they are preparing to,” he added.

ISH/HJFBI, judiciary repressing dissent in US’

[PAULYPOKER]

Obama may back FBI push for total internet surveillance law



President Obama is reportedly considering endorsing an FBI plan for a new series of laws requiring all Internet companies to build-in to all online systems a “capacity to comply with wiretap orders.”

The Obama Administration, and the Bush Administration before them, have previously tried to expand existing legislation into the Internet, demanding online companies give them virtually limitless access to anything that might be used for communication.

The problem is that an awful lot of existing systems not only don’t have the capability to spy on their users, but in many cases are explicitly designed with privacy in mind. This is the antithesis of the FBI goal of total information awareness.

Which has the FBI pushing for these new laws “requiring” all this software to be revised with their spying in mind.

First efforts at the law were stalling in Congress over fear of “stifling innovation,” sparking the new proposal of just fining every company that the Justice Department feels like going after who doesn’t comply.

If President Obama does endorse it, analysts say it could spark a major Congressional debate about privacy, something the FBI clearly doesn’t want.

More importantly, however, is that open source software will by definition allow end users to remove all of these wiretapping “features,” which makes the law completely unworkable to a broad segment of communications software. Antiwar


FACTS & FIGURES


The FBI has requested more than $41 million to improve the bureau’s ability to collect and analyze cyber information and address “critical gaps” in its capability to monitor web activities. The Huffington Post

The FBI has long had concerns that new technologies are not “wiretap friendly” and create blind spots for law enforcement when targets use certain methods of communication. Last year, the FBI privately pressured Internet companies to create backdoors for government surveillance. The Huffington Post

A privacy watchdog group is suing the FBI over the agency’s failure to fulfill Freedom of Information Act requests for documents involving a secretive and expansive database that could be used to track down anyone, anywhere and at any time. RT

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed the complaint in United States District Court for the District of Columbia in April, suing the Federal Bureau of Investigation for failing to comply with a pair of FOIA request placed more than six months ago. RT

Meanwhile, FBI investigators for at least five years have routinely used a sophisticated cellphone tracking tool that can pinpoint callers’ locations and listen to their conversations - all without getting a warrant for it. The Washington Times




AHT/ARAObama may back internet surveillance

[chilidog]

pauly, pauly, pauly. when are you going to realize that regardless of what you post, nothing will change. what is planned to happen, will happen. you can't do anything about it. choose apathy - it's much healthier for your mental sanity in the long run.

it's a shame that a man older than me hasn't figured this out yet.

[PAULYPOKER]

You are 100% correct......

[Darkside Magick]

It's a cruel and random world, but the chaos is all so beautiful.

[gregm]

Marshall law

Marshall Law (Japanese: マーシャル・ロウ Hepburn: Māsharu Rou?) is a character in the Tekken fighting game series. The character is a homage to martial artist Bruce Lee and shares many characteristics with the famous martial artist, even uttering similar high-pitched shouts and whoops when he performs certain strikes and attacks. He has a son named Forest Law, who is also based on Bruce Lee

[PAULYPOKER]

‘Government surveillance is an outrage’

An American activist slams the all-encompassing surveillance of citizens by the U.S. government as “an outrage” and a violation of their rights.

“There is a whole history of illegal government surveillance being carried out by the FBI, CIA, and NSA,” Caleb Maupin told the U.S. Desk on Wednesday

Every single day in America, the U.S. government intercepts and stores nearly 2 billion emails, phone calls and other forms of electronic communication, according to former NSA employees.

Caleb said that Americans assume that they can trust the government to keep them safe, but “in reality they’re breaking the very rules that they themselves project to the proof that they’re so great.”

Internal documents have revealed the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI do not use a search warrant to review Americans' e-mails, Facebook chats, Twitter direct messages, and other private files.

Government documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union and provided to CNET show a split over electronic privacy rights within the Obama administration, with Justice Department prosecutors and investigators privately insisting they're not legally required to obtain search warrants for e-mail.

Moreover, President Obama is reportedly considering endorsing an FBI plan for a new series of laws requiring all Internet companies to build-in to all online systems a “capacity to comply with wiretap orders.”

AHT/HJ‘Government surveillance is an outrage’

[rickyjjj]

burn your pc and start again with anew isp server

[PAULYPOKER]

Quick Facts: US spying on its own citizens
Sat Dec 3, 2011 7:11PM

1

0

The top-secret world the U.S. government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work, the report said.

Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.

An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington,D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.

The U.S. intelligence budget in fiscal year 2009 was $49.8 billion, according to a disclosure required under a recent law implementing recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. This figure is up from $47.5 billion in 2008 and $43.5 billion in 2007. Washingtonpost

Increased surveillance on US citizens after 911 attacks

Former President George W. Bush signed a presidential order in 2002 allowing the National Security Agency (NSA) to monitor without a warrant the international (and sometimes domestic) telephone calls and e-mail messages of hundreds or thousands of citizens and legal residents inside the United States.

The program eventually came to include some purely internal controls -- but no requirement that warrants be obtained from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court as the 4th Amendment to the Constitution and the foreign intelligence surveillance laws require.

In other words, no independent review or judicial oversight. ACLU

The rise of government surveillance is a troublesome legacy of the September 11 attacks. Today, video cameras are visible everywhere in public places, recording people's every move. But what about spying that can't be spotted?

Ten years after 9/11, new questions are being raised about what the U.S. government is secretly doing on the internet and through satellites, using the Patriot Act and other national security law as justification.

Two American senators with access to top-secret intelligence raised the alarm in May, suggesting that the invasion of law-abiding Americans' privacy was being carried out clandestinely - and that people would be shocked if they knew the extent.

“I want to deliver a warning this afternoon,” Senator Ron Wyden said on May during a Senate debate. “When the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act, they will be stunned and they will be angry.”

Another topic of concern raised by the senators is geo-location data - information generated by electronic devices such as cell phones, wirelessi-equipped laptops, and GPS navigation units - that can be used to determine where people are.

At a Senate hearing on July 26, Sen. Wyden went head-to-head with the top lawyer at the National Security Agency, Matthew Olsen. “Do government agencies have the authority to use cell-site data to track the location of Americans inside the United States for intelligence purposes?” Wyden asked.
Olsen replied: “I think there are certain circumstances where that authority may exist."

Moreover, Michael German who is a 16-year FBI veteran of counterterrorism operations who quit the bureau and later joined the ACLU, told Al Jazeera English: “It's clear the government is broadly collecting information regarding innocent Americans. It appears officials no longer need individualized suspicion, and a person's good conduct does not protect them from scrutiny.” Al-Jazeera


Even NYPD spied on U.S. Citizens without any evidence of crimes

Even the New York Police Department regularly spied on U.S. citizens and tracked their movements as part of the NYPD's vastly expanded intelligence and surveillance mission after 9/11, The Associated Press reported.

Police officers targeted Moroccan New Yorkers in every aspect of life, from the grocery store to the mosque to their apartments, earning the program the nickname of "the Moroccan Initiative." They staked out locations where Moroccans would gather: in one document obtained by the AP, police officers describe how a U.S. citizen in Queensbegan each day at "a known Moroccan barbershop," and in another an officer described "a newly identified hotel that is referred to Moroccan tourists."

The Moroccan Initiative was part of a broader shift for the NYPD toward counterterrorism, an effort that involves guidance and cooperation from the Central Intelligence Agency.

Other cities have rejected expanding their surveillance through similar tactics, The AP reported. Aspects of the NYPD's activities exceeded what even the FBI was legally permitted to do. Using undercover agents or deploying informants to a mosque without explicit reasons to suspect criminal activity would not be permissible under FBI rules.

"If you're sending an informant into a mosque when there is no evidence of wrongdoing, that's a very high-risk thing to do," said Valerie Caproni, the FBI's general counsel. "You're running right up against core constitutional rights. You're talking about freedom of religion." AP

The Amer*i*can Civil Lib*er*ties Union (ACLU) also al*leg*es that the FBI is il*le*gally gath*er*ing in*for*ma*tion on Mus*lims' po*lit*i*cal and re*li*gious af*fil*i*a*tions dur*ing out*reach meet*ings. The ACLU is basing these allegations on in*for*ma*tion gath*ered from in*ter*nal Fed*eral Bu*reau of In*ves*ti*ga*tion (FBI) own doc*u*ments.

Since the 9-11 ter*ror*ist attack, the FBI has been conducting, what is called "outreach" with Amer*i*can Mus*lims and Arab Amer*i*cans. The FBI claims they were work*ing with them to in*crease co*op*er*a*tion be*tween com*mu*ni*ties and fed*eral au*thor*i*ties. Yet the ACLU alleges the doc*u*ments, they ob*tained, show that the FBI has been using this "out*reach" to spy on Mus*lim com*mu*ni*ties. ACLU

KA/DB

[PAULYPOKER]

But yet they could not even come close to stopping the Boston bombings..........


Think about it......

If stopping terrorism on homeland is their 1 and only priority,they have failed miserably.........

If taking privacy and US citizens rights away is their 1 and only priority,they have accomplished this, 20 fold............

[PAULYPOKER]

pauly, pauly, pauly. when are you going to realize that regardless of what you post, nothing will change. what is planned to happen, will happen. you can't do anything about it. choose apathy - it's much healthier for your mental sanity in the long run.

it's a shame that a man 99% of the world including older than me hasn't figured this out yet.

You are 100% correct......

Now you are 100% correct..........

[PAULYPOKER]

AP protests US government seizure of phone records


Associated Press President and CEO Gary Pruitt speaks at the AP’s annual meeting in Orlando, Fla. , Monday, April 15, 2013.

The Associated Press said Monday the U.S. Justice Department had secretly obtained two months of phone records from its news operations, calling it a "massive and unprecedented intrusion."

The U.S. news agency protested the seizure in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder saying "there can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters."

The AP said in a news dispatch that the records may be sought in a criminal investigation into leaked information contained in a May 2012 AP story about a foiled terror plot.

"The story disclosed details of a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an al-Qaeda plot in the spring of 2012 to detonate a bomb on an airplane bound for the United States," the AP article said.

The AP's Erin Madigan White said in a blog posting that the AP learned Friday that U.S. authorities had "secretly obtained telephone records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP journalists and offices, including cell and home phone lines."

AP chief executive Gary Pruitt said in the letter to Holder that the news agency objected "in the strongest possible terms to a massive and unprecedented intrusion... into the newsgathering activities of The Associated Press."

Pruitt said the records "cover a full two-month period in early 2012" and included the AP general phone number in New York, AP bureaus in New York; Washington; Hartford, Connecticut; and at the House of Representatives.

"This action was taken without advance notice to AP or to any of the affected journalists, and even after the fact no notice has been sent to individual journalists whose home phones and cell phone records were seized by the Department," he said in the letter.

"We regard this action by the Department of Justice as a serious interference with AP's constitutional rights to gather and report the news."

Pruitt said the agency was studying its legal options, and called on the Justice Department to "immediately return to the AP the telephone toll records that the Department subpoenaed and destroy all copies."

The U.S. attorney's office in Washington, which is part of the Justice Department, in a statement sent to AFP, did not specifically mention the AP but stated that it follows specific laws and regulations in seeking records of media organizations.

"Those regulations require us to make every reasonable effort to obtain information through alternative means before even considering a subpoena for the phone records of a member of the media," the statement said.

"We must notify the media organization in advance unless doing so would pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation. Because we value the freedom of the press, we are always careful and deliberative in seeking to strike the right balance between the public interest in the free flow of information and the public interest in the fair and effective administration of our criminal laws."

The U.S. administration under President Barack Obama has been aggressive in pursuing leaks of secret government information. Former CIA officer John Kiriakou was sentenced in January to two and a half years in prison for leaking the name of a secret agent implicated in harsh interrogations of al-Qaeda suspects. AFP

AHT/AGB

[BuddyBear]

The farther a society moves away from the truth....the more they hate those people who speak the truth.

[Darkside Magick]

Every truth is a half false!!

[pronk]

I hate this lying conniving illuminati brainwash machine called associated press, Reuters owns the AP and Rothschilds own Reuters.

[PAULYPOKER]

‘Anybody believing US is a democracy is wrong’

American writer Stephen Lendman says freedom is “eroding” in the United States.

In America, “people incredibly are led to believe and they go along with the notion that it’s a good idea to give up some of their freedom to be more safe,” he said in an interview with Press TV’s U.S. Desk on Sunday.

“They don’t realize that giving up freedom for safety assures losing both, but propaganda convinces them otherwise,” he added.

He alluded to the aftermath of the Boston bombings on April 15 when authorities locked down the city and “terrorized” people.

Citing “concentration camps.., racial profiling and prosecution, militarized local police, criminalizing whistle blowers and targeting people who oppose state repression,” as major problems in the U.S., Lendman said “this is tyranny, this is what tyranny is.”

“Anybody believing that America is a democracy has no idea what state of America is today.”

Lendman also made reference to his recent article “Eroding Freedom in America” in which he highlights the following as instances of infringement of citizens’ rights by the U.S. governments:

· numerous police state laws;
· waging war on humanity;
· indefinite detentions without evidence, charges or trials;
· forced disappearances;
· targeted assassinations;
· torture and other forms of abuse;
· Big Brother surveillance;
· warrantless searches;
· other privacy invasions;
· false flag national security abuses;
· war on terror fear-mongering;
· military commission trials, including for U.S. citizens;
· domestic military force deployments;
· ? secret FEMA concentration camps;?
· racial profiling and persecution;
· militarized local police;
· criminalizing whistleblowers; and
· targeting non-believers for supporting right over wrong.

AT/HJ

[PAULYPOKER]

Bloomberg terminal spying targeted Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner



The Bloomberg terminal spying scandal has reached new heights, CNBC reports. A former Bloomberg employee told CNBC that he accessed information on the terminals of Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.

The employee didn't say specifically what he was looking at, but that it concerned usage of specific functions.

News of the scandal broke on Friday when the New York Post revealed that Goldman Sachs had complained that employees usage of their terminals were spied on by Bloomberg reporters. Further reports indicated that the spying was more widespread, affecting other companies such as JPMorgan.

On Saturday, the Federal Reserve announced that it would look into the situation. CNBC also reported that the Treasury would be investigating.

Bloomberg CEO Daniel Doctoroff admitted that it was a "mistake" to give journalists access to client data. The company announced Friday that, in wake of the controversy, journalists would no longer have access to client log-in activity on the terminals.

Things got worse for Bloomberg later on Saturday, when BuzzFeed published a report claiming that higher-ups at the financial information giant knew that journalists were accessing subscriber log-in data as early as 2011. A Bloomberg TV anchor made comments on-air suggesting that journalists at the company were using the information for potential stories.

In another CNBC report, Wall Street sources admitted that Bloomberg reporters had openly asked about employees' terminal usage behaviors.

"They were quite open about it," one JPMorgan Chase source told CNBC. "They'd say, 'We see your Whale trader hasn't logged in three days. Has he been fired?'" The Huffington Post

FACTS & FIGURES

Journalists at Bloomberg News have been spying on some of the 315,000 customers that use the market-data terminals, sold by a separate unit of Bloomberg and the primary revenue source for the company. The Huffington Post

Bloomberg gets a large chunk of its revenue from the sale of terminals to banks and other financial institutions. The Guardian

Almost all users are identified by name, and their terminals are often highly tailored to give them access to the financial information they need. The Guardian

Some Goldman traders are still skittish about how much of their terminal usage can be gleaned by Bloomberg — despite assurances from the news and data service that within 24 hours of being alerted by Goldman it pulled the plug on the function that allowed its reporters to snoop. NY Post

Traders throughout the financial world depend on Bloomberg terminals for real-time data on markets of all kinds as well as news and instant messaging. The machines reportedly rent for $20,000 a year and are used by thousands of subscribers, bringing in a substantial portion of the company's revenue. CNN




AT/HJ

[Siresco]

____

[PAULYPOKER]

‘US government has suppressed freedom of press for decades’

The U.S. government has suppressed the freedom of the press for decades to cover-up their wrong doings, according to a former American intelligence linguist.

“The freedom of the press is supposed to be used to expose government wrongdoings,” Scott Rickard said in a phone interview with the U.S. Desk.

American journalists have reacted with shock and outrage at the news that the Justice Department had secretly obtained months of phone records of Associated Press journalists.

The AP broke the news on Monday (May 13) about what it called an "unprecedented intrusion" into its operation. It said that the DOJ had obtained detailed phone records from over 20 different lines, potentially monitoring hundreds of different journalists without notifying the organization.

Rickard said covert investigation of the AP by the DOJ is another example of how the government is “disingenuous with the American people.”

“It’s an attack on the freedom of speech, it’s an attack on the freedom of press, and it’s a clear indication of the quick slide of the American democracy has taken towards a really fascist government, covert, criminal state,” he added.

AHT/ARA

[PAULYPOKER]

The FBI is drafting a proposal that would allow them to force tech companies to allow them to spy on websites' customers in real-time, through technology such as Skype, Google chat, some online gaming, and more. They also seek to impose fines on companies that don't comply with the real-time wiretap orders. Many see this as a privacy issue, along with a jobs issue. The Resident (aka Lori Harfenist) discusses the issue.
Follow The Resident on Twitter at

[PAULYPOKER]

Drones use in US airspace poses threat to civil liberties, lawmakers told



Top U.S. scholars gathered to testify in a little-watched congressional hearing Friday about the growing threat the use of drones in U.S. airspace poses to civil liberties.

They warned that unmanned aircraft carrying cameras raise the specter of a “significant new avenue for surveillance of American life,” as Christopher Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, characterized it for lawmakers Friday.

“Many Americans are familiar with these aircraft - commonly called drones - because of their use overseas in places like Afghanistan and Yemen. But drones are coming to America,” he said.

Recent legislation requires the Federal Aviation Administration to “develop a comprehensive plan to safely accelerate the integration of civil unmanned aircraft systems into the national airspace system.”

At the same time, the technology “is quickly becoming cheaper and more powerful,” which has accelerated interest in deploying drones among police departments, Mr. Calabrese pointed out in testimony before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations.

The problem, he warned, is that “our privacy laws are not strong enough to ensure that the new technology will be used responsibly and consistently with constitutional values.”

So as drones proliferate, so too does the “specter of routine aerial surveillance in American life,” he argued, “a development that would profoundly change the character of public life in the United States.”

“Drones can be employed in an endless variety of civilian applications,” noted John Villasenor, a fellow in government studies at the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution, in testimony before the committee.

Plus, in a time of fiscal constraint, drones are cheaper. For instance, after trying for months to cobble together enough money to buy a $25 million turbine engine helicopter, the Grand Forks, N.D., police department ultimately turned to drones as a lower-cost alternative.

But the low-cost of drones may also be part of the problem, Calabrese argued. In the past, because manned aircraft are costly to buy, operate, and maintain, “this expense has always imposed a natural limit on the government’s aerial surveillance capability,” he said.

Now, the prospect of cheap, small drones equipped with video surveillance “threatens to eradicate existing practical limits on aerial monitoring and allow for pervasive surveillance, police fishing expeditions, and abusive use of these tools in a way that could eventually eliminate the privacy Americans have traditionally enjoyed in their movements and activities,” he warned.

“Now that surveillance can be carried out by unmanned aircraft, this natural limit is eroding.” Christian Science Monitor


FACTS & FIGURES


Thousands of unmanned aircraft systems - commonly known as drones - could be buzzing around in U.S. airspace by 2015 because of a law passed last year.

The 2012 law, called the FAA Modernization and Reform Act, contains a seven-page provision - known as the Drone Act - requiring the FAA to fully integrate unmanned aircraft into the National Airspace System by September 2015. Additionally, the Drone Act allows law enforcement agencies, including local police forces, to buy and use unmanned aircraft for evidence gathering and surveillance.

American Civil Liberties Union senior policy analyst Jay Stanley said that in American legal tradition, police don’t watch over citizens unless they have individualized suspicion that a person is about to do something wrong. But, he said, drones could allow police to constantly monitor people, tracking their movements and vehicles.

Virginia is considering a two-year moratorium on drone use. Thirty other states have introduced legislation to protect privacy and limit unmanned aircraft use. mcclatchydc.com

The FAA recently released an updated list of domestic drone authorizations, showing more than 20 new drone operators, and bringing to 81 the total number of public entities that have applied for FAA drone authorizations through October 2012.

After Congress passed the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization last year requiring the FAA to permit the operation of drones weighing 25 pounds or less, observers predicted that anything up to 30,000 spy drones could be flying in U.S. skies by 2020. infowars.com




AHT/HJ

[PAULYPOKER]

[VIDEO] Protester Tasered at DoJ
Tue May 21, 2013






A woman who became an activist after JPMorgan Chase foreclosed on her home in 2011 was shocked with a Taser and arrested while protesting outside the Department of Justice on Tuesday.

In video obtained by Occupy Our Homes Atlanta, large men with assault rifles can be seen surrounding Carmen Pittman before one of the agents shocks her with a stun gun and she falls to the ground.

Pittman seems to writhe in agony on the ground for a few moments before a man in a yellow police shirt picks her up. As he restrains her, other officers place her in handcuffs.

“My every Christmas, my every Thanksgiving, my every birthday, my every dinner was in this house,” Pittman told The Huffington Post as she was fighting the foreclosure of her Atlanta home in 2011. “This was the base home. We could not stay away from this home. This home is my every memory.”

Occupy Our Homes has planned a Wall Street Accountability Week of Action in Washington, D.C. for May 18 through May 23. Raw Story


HIGHLIGHTS


Underwater homeowners and hundreds of allies barricaded the front door of the Department of Justice building Monday afternoon to protest the "too big to jail banks" who have shirked punishment despite having destroyed "homes, savings and livelihoods." Common Dreams

District and federal law enforcement officials arrested 17 people Monday after protesters opposing foreclosures attempted to storm the entrances of the Justice Department. The Washington Post

About 100 protesters with groups called the Home Defenders League and Occupy Our Homes marched on the Department of Justice about 2 p.m. on Tuesday. Some set up tents on the lawn and sidewalk while others ran up to the building’s Constitution Avenue entrance. The Washington Post

The protesters were calling on Attorney General Eric Holder to prosecute Wall Street banks. Holder has said that such prosecutions would put the financial system at risk. Raw Story

Occupiers also cited the unjust fraudulent foreclosure settlement and continual foreclosures as grievances that led to the protest. The miniscule amount of money the banks paid is not only seen as comically inefficient at making victims whole but extremely ineffective in deterring future crimes. The banks escaped justice thanks to the Justice Department. firedoglake.com




AT/ISH

[PAULYPOKER]

NYPD’s stop-and-frisk practices ‘failure’


American activist Tighe Barry has described the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk practices as a “failure.”

“Stop-and-frisk is a failure simply because it destroys our Bill of Rights when nine out of ten people who are stop-and-frisked are people of color when nine out of ten people who are stop-and-frisked never even received a ticket or a citation,” he said in a phone interview with Press TV’s U.S. Desk on Tuesday.

“This goes right to the heart of our Fourth Amendment right of freedom from search and seizure without due process or without suspicion,” he added.

After listening to two months of testimony on the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk practices, Judge Shira A. Scheindlin left little doubt about her views of their effectiveness in helping detect criminal behavior.

“A lot of people are being frisked or searched on suspicion of having a gun and nobody has a gun,” Judge Scheindlin, of Federal District Court in Manhattan, said. “So the point is: the suspicion turns out to be wrong in most of the cases.”

Observing that only about 12 percent of police stops resulted in an arrest or summons, Judge Scheindlin focused her remarks on the other 88 percent of stops, in which the police did not find evidence of criminality after a stop. She characterized that as “a high error rate” and remarked to a lawyer representing the city, “You reasonably suspect something and you’re wrong 90 percent of the time.”

“It’s not worth leaving up our Fourth Amendment right to have a little bit of security in the long run,” Barry said.

AGB/AGB

[andywend]

He was in the boat the WHOLE time...........

See if you can figure it out through this Pet Goat 2 prophecy ....



Published on Jun 30, 2012

Pauly, if the government is spying on you, I think that's great. I will support any legislation that gives the government a better chance to catch people like you before you commit some sort of terrorist act against the country. You're full of hate from head to toe and I want my government to have as much latitude as possible to keep their eyes on you as you're a terrorist act just waiting to happen.

[PAULYPOKER]

Pauly, if the government is spying on you, I think that's great. I will support any legislation that gives the government a better chance to catch people like you before you commit some sort of terrorist act against the country. You're full of hate from head to toe and I want my government to have as much latitude as possible to keep their eyes on you as you're a terrorist act just waiting to happen.

That is a good one!!


I post TRUTH that people like you hate and see as hate.........

You need to look into the mirror pal.........

Get under your hood worked on as well....

[PAULYPOKER]

People like you, Andy, are frightened to death of TRUTH and will avoid it at all costs...............

[PAULYPOKER]

Antiwar.com sues FBI after secret surveillance




Antiwar.com is taking the FBI to court. The website’s founder and managing editor Eric Garris, along with longtime editorial director Justin Raimondo, filed a lawsuit in federal court on Wednesday, demanding the release of records they believe the FBI is keeping on them and the 17-year-old online magazine.

Antiwar.com says this is one more example of post-9/11 government overreach, and a stark reminder that the First Amendment has been treated as little more than a speed bump on the road to a government surveillance state.

The lawsuit is particularly timely, considering recent scandals in which the Department of Justice secretly seized months of journalists’ phone records at the Associated Press, and did the same and more to a FOX News reporter, while the IRS is acknowledging it singled out conservative groups that criticize the government for extra scrutiny.

Suddenly, the press is more aware than ever that the state has the ability to secretly monitor its activities, heretofore thought of as constitutionally protected from government interference and intimidation.

“Freedom of the press is a cornerstone of our democracy, whether it’s AP or Antiwar.com,” said Julia Harumi Mass, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, which is representing Antiwar.com in the case. “FBI surveillance of news organizations interferes with journalists’ ability to do their jobs as watchdogs that hold the government accountable.”

The suit was filed on Tuesday at the United States District Court, Northern District of California, San Francisco Division. Both Garris and Raimondo live and work in the San Francisco Bay area.

According to the suit, the ACLU has made several futile attempts to obtain the FBI files since a reader alerted Garris and Raimondo to this lengthy FBI memo in 2011.

The details in question begin at page 62 of the heavily redacted 94-page document. It’s clear from these documents, the suit alleges, that the FBI has files on Garris and Raimondo, and at one point the FBI agent writing the April 30, 2004 memo on Antiwar.com recommends further monitoring of the website in the form of opening a “preliminary investigation …to determine if [redaction] are engaging in, or have engaged in, activities which constitute a threat to national security.”

“On one hand it seemed almost funny that we would be considered a threat to national security, but it’s very scary, because what we are engaging in is free speech, and free speech by ordinary citizens and journalists is now being considered a threat to national security and they don’t have to prove it because the government has the ability to suppress information and not disclose any of their activities - as witnessed with what is going on now at the AP and other things,” said Garris.

“The government’s attitude is they want to know all, but they want the public to know as little as possible.”

In response, the ACLU began filing requests in December 2011 under the Privacy Act and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for any records the FBI was currently holding on Antiwar.com, which describes itself as a Libertarian-inspired project of the Randolph Bourne Institute.

It was clear from reading the memo that Antiwar.com came under the radar in part for its mission, which is characterized as publishing a non-interventionist “online magazine and research tool designed to keep the American people and the world informed about the overseas plans of the American government.”

While openly acknowledging that Antiwar has an agenda, the editors take seriously their purely journalistic mission, which is to get past the media filters and reveal the truth about America’s foreign policy.

The website was also targeted, according to the FBI memo, for links it published to counter-terrorism watch lists (which were already in the public domain), and for the people who were visiting Antiwar.com and/or talking it up at rallies. The FBI noted at least two of Raimondo’s columns and wondered openly, “who are (Antiwar.com’s) contributors and what are the funds utilized for?” This, after acknowledging there was no evidence of any crime being plotted or committed.

“This illustrates the troubling, continuing efforts of the federal government to monitor protected speech activity without evidence or even allegation of criminal activity,” said Mass, who explained that there are specific prohibitions against such surveillance and record-keeping in the 1974 Privacy Act [5 U.S.C 552a(e)(7)].

After Raimondo wrote about the FBI memo in August 2011, which at the time, independent journalist Marcy Wheeler at EmptyWheel.net deemed a “troubling story,” Antiwar.com started losing donors, and according to the lawsuit, it was big time.

In October 2011, one of Antiwar.com’s major donors withdrew his financial support from Antiwar.com out of concern that the FBI would monitor him if he continued to provide, as he wished to do, financial support to Antiwar.com. Since then, three significant donors have also withdrawn financial support, citing their fear that FBI interest in Antiwar.com would lead to surveillance of the donors as a reason for withdrawing financial support. As a result, Antiwar.com has lost about $75,000 per year since 2011 in otherwise expected contributions.

Reached over the weekend, Wheeler, who routinely investigates and reports on the impact of post-9/11 government surveillance on civil liberties for EmptyWheel.net, voiced her concern about the apparent FBI surveillance of Antiwar.com and its far-reaching implications.

“It’s likely (the) FBI is hiding one or another things: Bush era investigations into the peace community that were improper to start with, and/or the degree to which First Amendment activities have become one reason to investigate completely innocent activity,” she said. Antiwar

AHT/ARA

[PAULYPOKER]

DOJ seized Fox News phone records as well!



Federal investigators apparently accessed records of calls to and from a phone number at Fox News Channel in their leak investigation of a former State Department contractor, according to a court document.

News of the government's search of Fox News phone records comes after controversy broke out last week over a separate leak investigation in which prosecutors seized the call details of roughly 20 phone numbers of reporters and editors at the Associated Press.

Former government contractor Stephen Kim has been charged in federal court with leaking an intelligence report about North Korea in 2009 to Fox News reporter James Rosen. Mr. Kim has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.

In a filing describing evidence gathered in the prosecution of Mr. Kim, prosecutors listed a series of phone numbers for which they seized phone call logs-the calls placed to and from a number, as well as the duration of the calls. One of the phone numbers has the same three-digit exchange as Fox News' Washington bureau, according to the court document, which was earlier reported by the New Yorker's website. It wasn't clear how many other customers have that three-digit exchange.

The filing also listed two numbers in the 456 exchange, which is used by the White House. In those cases, the government sought to identify only users of the numbers.

A government official said investigators didn't pull the call logs of any White House employees. The last four digits of all of the numbers in the filing were redacted, meaning that it was impossible to tell which specific phones investigators were trying to identify.

The government's tactics in the Kim case gained attention when the Washington Post reported Sunday night that prosecutors sought and received a judge's approval to obtain the Fox News reporter's private emails in a Gmail account. Fox News said it learned about the email seizure from the news report.

Michael Clemente, Fox News' executive vice president, said Tuesday he was "outraged" by the seizure of the reporter's emails. "We will unequivocally defend his right to operate as a member of what up until now has always been a free press," said Mr. Clemente.

The newly revealed court document, which dates from 2011, suggests that the government's search for information about Fox News' activities went beyond the reporter's personal email account and may have extended to communications using the company's equipment. It wasn't immediately clear how many Fox News journalists might have been affected.

In the AP case, the government notified the news agency only after the phone records were already taken. The Justice Department obtained records affecting about 100 employees, according to the AP.

The AP records covered about four weeks over a two-month period when the news agency was preparing an article about an alleged conspiracy to detonate an underwear bomb aboard a U.S.-bound airliner.

Past leak probes, including a case involving the New York Times during the Bush administration, indicate the law generally supports the government's right to obtain such records. WSJ


FACTS & FIGURES


Tensions between the Obama administration and the press were strained further Monday by news that the Justice Department had targeted a Fox News reporter as a criminal co-conspirator over national security leaks.

The scope of the Fox News subpoenas does not appear to have been as large as that of the DOJ's pursuit of the Associated Press. There, records for at least 20 phone lines were seized. Huffington Post

The president and CEO of The Associated Press said Sunday that the government's seizure of AP journalists' phone records was "unconstitutional" and already has had a chilling effect on newsgathering. AP

Gary Pruitt says the Justice Department's secret subpoena of reporters' phone records has made sources less willing to talk to AP journalists. AP

The Associated Press doesn't question the Justice Department's right to have seized two months' worth of its phone records, the organization's president and CEO Gary Pruitt said Sunday on "Face the Nation." It was the methodology - "so sweeping, so secretively, so abusively and harassingly overbroad," he said - that breached the Constitution. CBS News




AHT/ARA

Press TV

[PAULYPOKER]

‘Obama targeting free expression’


The Obama administration’s methods to block the revelation of information it wants secret are an attack on “free expression” and “free press,” says Stephen Lendman, American writer, radio host, and columnist at Veterans Today.

The administration of President Barack Obama has recently been dogged by a string of scandals stemming from measures that critics say were aimed at keeping groups critical of the government under the radar.

The news about the Justice Department's seizure of the Associated Press and Fox News records and the targeting of conservative groups for extra scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service has unleashed a barrage of criticism on the Obama’s White House.

Lendman says such actions are “longstanding” in American politics but “Obama seems to be taking it to an extreme.”

“He [Obama]’s going after more than enemies…He’s targeting free expression, he’s targeting a free press in America,” said Lendman in a phone interview with the U.S. Desk on Wednesday.

The official narrative coming out of the White House in response to these scandals has been evolving but most Americans are skeptical.

A Washington Post/ABC News poll released on Tuesday shows 74 percent of Americans believe the increased IRS scrutiny on conservative groups was deliberate and 51 percent say the actions were criminal.

According to the Washington Post, at various points over the past two years, IRS officials singled out for scrutiny not only groups with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names but also nonprofit groups that criticized the government and sought to educate Americans about the U.S. Constitution.

“[Obama] is going after multiple people to silence dissent, to make anybody vulnerable, to threaten anybody, that anybody who dares reveal information that the government wants to keep secret, they would be a target for U.S. recrimination,” added Lendman.

ISH/HJ

PressTV

[KingJD31]

I thought Obama was a puppet for the elite? How could he have such power pauly?

[PAULYPOKER]

Your Mobile Device Is a Hack Waiting to Happen: Pros




When it comes to keeping their mobile devices safe and secure, consumers are playing a game of cat-and-mouse with cyber criminals.


Although most users are aware that mobile devices can be hacked, just as desktops or laptops can, many still don't take steps to protect themselves and the data on their smartphones and tablets, according to a study released Wednesday at the CTIA conference in Las Vegas.
(Read More: Cybercriminals Are Coming After Your Mobile Apps: Experts)


"We've seen an explosion of malware for mobile devices," said Chris Doggett, senior vice president of corporate sales at the security firm Kaspersky Labs. "There is a lot of catch-up that needs to happen with people's' mindset about mobile security, and that is what we are trying to bring to bear."


Eighty-five percent of consumers know that not having security software on a mobile devices puts them at risk of a breach, the study said, but only 31 percent have installed protective software on their smartphone or tablet.

Why the disconnect between awareness and action?


For one thing, people tend to ignore warnings until they or someone they know experiences a breach, Doggett said.
Apple has also contributed to a false sense of security, he said. Because smartphone adoption in the U.S.was largely driven by the iPhone—a very secure device—consumers think that all mobile devices are as safe as the ones on Apple's platform.




"I think this attitude is based on our initial experiences with these devices," Doggett said. "They were very reliable; they were pretty secure; there weren't any published examples of attacks or malware. It was a fairly safe assumption to make, relatively speaking," he said.



Mobile malware attacks are aimed primarily at Android devices, which account for more than half of the world's smartphone market. In fact, Android accounts for more than 90 percent of all malware activity, according to a recent report published by the software security firm F-Secure.
(Read More: Hacker Claims He Can Hijack Any Airplane Using a Mobile App)



"Let's face it, the way we use devices today—everything is on them," Doggett said. "It's gotten to the point where we are using these devices for so much stuff that is sensitive ... that we need to start thinking about it much more seriously, because if someone gets their hands on that, a lot of bad stuff can happen."
_By CNBC's Cadie Thompson. Follow her on Twitter @CadieThompson.

[PAULYPOKER]

Marines punished for sexist, threatening posts against Obama


Federal law enforcement officials are investigating a former Marine and several active-duty Marines after they allegedly posted threatening and lewd messages on social media sites that targeted President Obama and a California congresswoman, according to a government official informed of the investigations.

The former Marine was interviewed last week by the Secret Service for the threatening post against President Obama, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigations are ongoing.

The Secret Service does not discuss its protective actions, said spokesman George Ogilvie.

Investigators from the U.S. Capitol Police have been investigating several threatening posts against Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., the Capitol Hill source said. Capitol Police do not comment on their investigations.

Several Marines also have been referred to their commanders for non-judicial punishment in recent months, said Marine Capt. Eric Flanagan, a spokesman. That punishment can range from raking leaves to loss of rank to dismissal from the service, he said.

The Marines have received complaints about a number of social media sites, Flanagan said, including the Facebook page F'N Wook, which prompted Speier, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, to write letters of complaint to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos. Facebook took down the page, but similar postings have been made elsewhere.

Some of the posts suggest female Marines achieved their rank by performing sex, another shows a female Marine on her knees with a snake being put in her mouth. A recent post about Speier refers to her in vulgar terms and accuses her of trampling First Amendment rights.

Speier was targeted after her letter called attention to the posts, and she spoke out about what top military officers have described as a crisis with sexual harassment and abuse in its ranks. The Pentagon estimates that there were 26,000 instances of sexual abuse in the military last year, an increase of 35% compared with 2010.

A series of military sex scandals in recent weeks has underscored the problem: an Air Force officer in charge of sex abuse prevention programs awaits trial for his alleged drunken groping of a woman in Arlington, Va., not far from his Pentagon office; an Army sergeant first class is being investigated for running an alleged prostitution operation at Fort Hood; and an Army non-commissioned officer has been charged for allegedly videotaping nude cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

On Friday, Obama told graduating midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy commencement in Annapolis, Md., that sexual assault and harassment had no part in today's military. Hagel expressed similar sentiments Saturday during the graduation ceremony at West Point.

AGB/DB

[PAULYPOKER]

American activist ‘groped by TSA agent’


Ashley Jessica during a pat-down

An American activist said that an agent of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) touched her private parts during a pat-down.

Ashley Jessica, who led the Infowars Opt Out & Film the TSA campaign last Thanksgiving, uploaded a video in which the TSA agent allegedly touched her private parts through her clothing during an airport pat-down.

Jessica, who was with her mother during the trip, chose the pat-down procedure instead of going through a body scanner machine at the San Diego International Airport.

In the video, the angry activist asked the TSA female agent not to touch her her mother's private parts several times.

Jessica told InfoWars.com that she and her mother were told that they would undergo “an extensive pat-down which would involve going all the way up the leg."

The TSA agent threatened to ban Jessica from flying at which point Jessica agreed to allow the pat-down to continue, but flinched when the TSA agent felt high up on the inner part of her leg, possibly touching the young woman's genitalia.

This is not the first time a person has claimed mistreatment at the hands of TSA agents.

Some of the abuses of the TSA include mistreating children, the elderly, severely ill and disabled passengers; stealing from passengers, testing drinks that travelers purchased inside airports and ordering travelers to freeze on command.

More than 17,000 formal complaints have been filed against TSA "enhanced" pat-downs since 2009, according to a news report by Scott MacFarlane of WSBTV Channel 2, Atlanta.

The United States remains one of the only countries in the world to X-ray passengers for airport screening. The European Union prohibited the backscatters “in order not to risk jeopardizing citizens’ health and safety.”

AGB/AGB