U.S. Government spying on entire U.S., to nobody's surprise

[bentom187]

GO UK!

Government Orders YouTube To Censor Protest Videos

In a frightening example of how the state is tightening its grip around the free Internet, it has emerged that You Tube is complying with thousands of requests from governments to censor and remove videos that show protests and other examples of citizens simply asserting their rights, while also deleting search terms by government mandate.

The latest example is You Tube’s compliance with a request from the British government to censor footage of the British Constitution Group Lawful Rebellion protest, during which they attempted to civilly arrest Judge Michael Peake at Birkenhead county court.

Peake was ruling on a case involving Roger Hayes, former member of UKIP, who has refused to pay council tax, both as a protest against the government’s treasonous activities in sacrificing Britain to globalist interests and as a result of Hayes clearly proving that council tax is illegal.

Hayes has embarked on an effort to legally prove that the enforced collection of council tax by government is unlawful because no contract has been agreed between the individual and the state. His argument is based on the sound legal principle that just like the council, Hayes can represent himself as a third party in court and that “Roger Hayes” is a corporation and must be treated as one in the eyes of the law.


The British government doesn't want this kind of information going viral in the public domain because it is scared stiff of a repeat of the infamous poll tax riots of 1990, a massive tax revolt in the UK that forced the Thatcher government to scrap the poll tax altogether because of mass civil disobedience and refusal to pay.


When viewers in the UK attempt to watch videos of the protest, they are met with the message, “This content is not available in your country due to a government removal request.”

We then click through to learn that, “YouTube occasionally receives requests from governments around the world to remove content from our site, and as a result, YouTube may block specific content in order to comply with local laws in certain countries.”

You can also search by country to discover that Google, the owner of You Tube, has complied with the majority of requests from governments, particularly in the United States and the UK, not only to remove You Tube videos, but also specific web search terms and thousands of “data requests,” meaning demands for information that would reveal the true identity of a You Tube user. Google claims that the information sent to governments is “needed for legitimate criminal investigations,” but whether these “data requests” have been backed up by warrants is not divulged by the company.

“Between July 1 and Dec. 31 (2009), Google received 3,580 requests for user data from U.S. government agencies, slightly less than the 3,663 originating from Brazil,” reports PC World. “The United Kingdom and India sent more than 1,000 requests each, and smaller numbers originated from various other countries.”

With regard to search terms, one struggles to understand how a specific combination of words in a Google search can be considered a violation of any law. This is about government and Google working hand in hand to manipulate search results in order to censor inconvenient information, something which Google now freely admits to doing.

You Tube’s behavior is more despicable than the Communist Chinese, who are at least open about their censorship policies, whereas You Tube hides behind a blanket excuse and doesn’t even say what law has been broken.

Anyone who swallows the explanation that the videos were censored in this case because the government was justifiably enforcing a law that says scenes from inside a court room cannot be filmed is beyond naive. Court was not even in session in the protest footage that was removed, and the judge had already left the courtroom.


The real reason for the removal is the fact that the British government is obviously petrified of seeing a group of focused and educated citizens, black, white, old and young, male and female, go head to head with the corrupt system on its own stomping ground.


In their efforts to keep a lid on the growing populist fury that has arrived in response to rampant and growing financial and political tyranny in every sector of society, governments in the west are now mimicking Communist Chinese-style Internet censorship policies in a bid to neutralize protest movements, while hypocritically lecturing the rest of the world on maintaining web freedom.

Via a combination of cybersecurity legislation and policy that is hastily introduced with no real oversight, governments and large Internet corporations are crafting an environment where the state can simply demand information be removed on a whim with total disregard for freedom of speech protections.

This was underscored last year at the height of the Wikileaks issue, when Amazon axed Wikileaks from its servers following a phone call made by Senator Joe Lieberman's Senate Homeland Security Committee demanding the website be deleted.

Lieberman has been at the forefront of a push to purge the Internet of all dissent by empowering Obama with a figurative Internet kill switch that he would use to shut down parts of the Internet or terminate websites under the guise of national security. Lieberman spilled the beans on the true reason for the move during a CNN interview when he stated “Right now China, the government, can disconnect parts of its Internet in case of war and we need to have that here too.”

Except that China doesn’t disconnect the Internet “in case of war,” it only ever does so to censor and intimidate people who express dissent against government atrocities or corruption, as we have documented. This is precisely the kind of online environment the British and American governments are trying to replicate as they attempt to put a stranglehold on the last bastion of true free speech – the world wide web.


related article:
Lawful Rebellion in 2012 – The clock is ticking

here is the explination of how you have had a corporate constructive trust in your name , abandoned to you at birth. you & and your Christian/ given name : First Middle Last ,and here is your trust company : FIRST MIDDLE LAST. check all your government records and any business license you get ,like a drivers license, it will be there.

Canonum De Ius Positivum

Canons of Positive LawIII. Rights
3.3 Rights Suspension and Corruption
Article 100 - Cestui Que Vie Trust

Is America Still A British Colony? And If So, Have You Heard Of The "Cestui Que Vie Act of 1666"?

 

[backyardbogfan]

I grew up where we cling to guns and religion. Chances are very good we would have fought if we grew up in same neighborhood. I hate liars and that is all Obama does.

 

[Harry Gypsna]

they only asked for passwords to perpetuate the fiction that passwords make encryption secure ... well, ok, maybe if you have a quantum encryption device.

i'll bet every hacker in the world is taking aim at the nsa's cloud storage. maybe said cloud storage is just a honey pot to round up the hackers ... hmmmm.[/QUOTE

PGP/GNUPG and Truecrypt are secure. If they weren't, the UK Government wouldn't be sending people to prison for refusing to hand over their key.

 

[bentom187]

must watch this if you are a human being.barak Obama has his first political prisoner.yes its his fault, as commander and chief of all the unelected regulation enforcers (police).CIA ,NSA ,FBI all 4 branches of he military and elector of supreme court justices which administer the district courts. I mean anyone can tell arrest before charge or probable cause is not appropriate anywhere in he in the united states. I guess being XO of a corporation named the UNITED STATES(note caps)http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/3002
(15) “United States” means—
(A) a Federal corporation;

(B) an agency, department, commission, board, or other entity of the United States; or

(C) an instrumentality of the United States.

gives you a huge ego perhaps similar to kings.


#MyFriendAdam has been kidnapped
[YOUTUBEIF]FasoBh6iLEc#at=208[/YOUTUBEIF]

 

[BudToaster]

PGP/GNUPG and Truecrypt are secure. If they weren't, the UK Government wouldn't be sending people to prison for refusing to hand over their key.

After reading the Wikipedia entry for TrueCrypt it seems to me UK Gov needs a better batch of hackers ... maybe outsource to .ru

Prison is probably more cost effective for non-important stuff.

 

[bentom187]

welp this is nice,we are at war with yet another country this time for no apparent reason other than expanding war.


http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives...-in-yemen.aspx
Most Americans are probably unaware that over the past two weeks the US has launched at least eight drone attacks in Yemen, in which dozens have been killed. It is the largest US escalation of attacks on Yemen in more than a decade. The US claims that everyone killed was a “suspected militant,” but Yemeni citizens have for a long time been outraged over the number of civilians killed in such strikes. The media has reported that of all those killed in these recent US strikes, only one of the dead was on the terrorist “most wanted” list.

This significant escalation of US attacks on Yemen coincides with Yemeni President Hadi’s meeting with President Obama in Washington earlier this month. Hadi was installed into power with the help of the US government after a 2011 coup against its long-time ruler, President Saleh. It is in his interest to have the US behind him, as his popularity is very low in Yemen and he faces the constant threat of another coup.

In Washington, President Obama praised the cooperation of President Hadi in fighting the Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. This was just before the US Administration announced that a huge unspecified threat was forcing the closure of nearly two dozen embassies in the area, including in Yemen. According to the Administration, the embassy closings were prompted by an NSA-intercepted conference call at which some 20 al-Qaeda leaders discussed attacking the West. Many remain skeptical about this dramatic claim, which was made just as some in Congress were urging greater scrutiny of NSA domestic spying programs.

The US has been involved in Yemen for some time, and the US presence in Yemen is much greater than we are led to believe. As the Wall Street Journal reported last week:

“At the heart of the U.S.-Yemeni cooperation is a joint command center in Yemen, where officials from the two countries evaluate intelligence gathered by America and other allies, such as Saudi Arabia, say U.S. and Yemeni officials. There, they decide when and how to launch missile strikes against the highly secretive list of alleged al Qaeda operatives approved by the White House for targeted killing, these people say.”
Far from solving the problem of extremists in Yemen, however, this US presence in the country seems to be creating more extremism. According to professor Gregory Johnson of Princeton University, an expert on Yemen, the civilian “collateral damage” from US drone strikes on al-Qaeda members actually attracts more al-Qaeda recruits:
“There are strikes that kill civilians. There are strikes that kill women and children. And when you kill people in Yemen, these are people who have families. They have clans. And they have tribes. And what we're seeing is that the United States might target a particular individual because they see him as a member of al-Qaeda. But what's happening on the ground is that he's being defended as a tribesman.”
The US government is clearly at war in Yemen. It is claimed they are fighting al-Qaeda, but the drone strikes are creating as many or more al-Qaeda members as they are eliminating. Resentment over civilian casualties is building up the danger of blowback, which is a legitimate threat to us that is unfortunately largely ignored. Also, the US is sending mixed signals by attacking al-Qaeda in Yemen while supporting al-Qaeda linked rebels fighting in Syria.

This cycle of intervention producing problems that require more intervention to “solve” impoverishes us and makes us more, not less, vulnerable. Can anyone claim this old approach is successful? Has it produced one bit of stability in the region? Does it have one success story? There is an alternative. It is called non-interventionism. We should try it. First step would be pulling out of Yemen.

 

[bentom187]

Michael Hayden, Bob Schieffer and the media's reverence of national security officials


Glenn Greenwald
theguardian.com, Monday 12 August 2013 09.52 EDT


In 2006, the New York Times won the Pulitzer Prize for having revealed that the NSA was eavesdropping on Americans without warrants. The reason that was a scandal was because it was illegal under a 30-year-old law that made it a felony, punishable by up to 5 years in prison for each offense, to eavesdrop on Americans without those warrants. Although both the Bush and Obama DOJs ultimately prevented final adjudication by raising claims of secrecy and standing, and the "Look Forward, Not Backward (for powerful elites)" Obama DOJ refused to prosecute the responsible officials, all three federal judges to rule on the substance found that domestic spying to be unconstitutional and in violation of the statute.


The person who secretly implemented that illegal domestic spying program was retired Gen. Michael Hayden, then Bush's NSA director. That's the very same Michael Hayden who is now frequently presented by US television outlets as the authority and expert on the current NSA controversy - all without ever mentioning the central role he played in overseeing that illegal warrantless eavesdropping program.


As Marcy Wheeler noted: "the 2009 Draft NSA IG Report that Snowden leaked [and the Guardian published] provided new details about how Hayden made the final decision to continue the illegal wiretapping program even after DOJ's top lawyers judged it illegal in 2004. Edward Snowden leaked new details of Michael Hayden's crime." The Twitter commentator sysprog3 put it this way:


Inviting Hayden to comment on regulation of surveillance is like having Bernie Madoff comment on regulation of Wall Street."




But inviting Hayden to do exactly that is what establishment media outlets do continually. Just yesterday, Face the Nation featured Hayden as the premiere guest to speak authoritatively about how trustworthy the NSA is, how safe it keeps us, and how wise President Obama is for insisting that all of its programs continue. As usual, no mention was made of the role he played in secretly implementing an illegal warrantless spying program aimed directly at the American people. As most establishment media figures do when quivering in the presence of national security state officials, the supremely sycophantic TV host Bob Schieffer treated Hayden like a visiting dignitary in his living room and avoided a single hard question.


But worse than the omission of Hayden's NSA history is his current - and almost always unmentioned - financial stake in the very policies he is being invited to defend. Hayden is a partner in the Chertoff Group, a private entity that makes more and more money by increasing the fear levels of the US public and engineering massive government security contracts for their clients. Founded by former Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff, it's filled with former national security state officials who exploit their connections in and knowledge of Washington to secure hugely profitable government contracts for their clients. As the Huffington Post's Marcus Baram reported:




"After last month's plot to send bombs from Yemen to the United States aboard a cargo plane, former U.S. Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff's whiskerless visage was ubiquitous on cable news. Solemnly warning that the nation needed stronger security procedures . . . .


"Almost unmentioned in these appearances: Chertoff has a lot to gain financially if some of these measures are adopted. Between his private consulting firm, The Chertoff Group, and seats on the boards of giant defense and security firms, he sits at the heart of the giant security nexus created in the wake of 9/11, in effect creating a shadow homeland security agency. Chertoff launched his firm just days after President Barack Obama took office, eventually recruiting at least 11 top officials from the Department of Homeland Security, as well as former CIA director General Michael Hayden and other top military brass and security officials. . . .


"'They're trying to scare the pants off the American people that we need these things," [passenger rights advocate Kate] Hanni told The Huffington Post. 'When Chertoff goes on TV, he is basically promoting his clients and exploiting that fear to make money. Fear is a commodity and they're selling it. The more they can sell it, the more we buy into it. When American people are afraid, they will accept anything.'"


The article further detailed how much of a huge financial stake the Chertoff Group has in scaring the nation about cyber threats and obtaining large NSA contracts relating to cyber-warfare. Hayden's bio at the Chertoff Group says that his focus includes "technological intelligence and counterintelligence (communications and data networks)" and "brief[ing] clients on intelligence matters worldwide – including developments in cybersecurity – that may affect their businesses."


In other words, Hayden has a clear financial stake in the very NSA debates he's put on television to adjudicate. And while he's sometimes identified as a principal of the Chertoff Group, what that means - the conflicts of interest it creates in the very debates in which he's participating - is almost never mentioned. That's because one inviolable rule for establishment TV hosts like Bob Schieffer is that US military officials must be treated with the greatest reverence and must never be meaningfully challenged (contrast that with what actual journalist David Halberstam described as the "proudest moment" of his career: when he stood up in press conferences in 1963 in Vietnam to make clear he knew US generals were lying, to the point that the Pentagon demanded that his New York Times editors remove him from covering the war).


That political figures have undisclosed financial stakes in the policy positions they pretend to favor is so common in Washington that it has become normalized, something its mavens barely recognize as noteworthy. The same is true of former national security officials who exploit their credentials, their connections, and - especially - the Fear of Terrorism to generate massive profits for themselves. But that this manipulation is incredibly common in sleazy Washington does not justify having TV-journalists conceal those conflicts when presenting these officials as authorities and experts. When it comes to people like Michael Hayden, the profoundly unhealthy reverence harbored by TV journalists means that they would never dare utter any such facts. We are thus subjected to "journalism" in which those least qualified to opine, and those with the greatest personal interests in the outcome of debates, are presented as objective experts, while viewers remain entirely uninformed about all of this.


Bob Schieffer and "Objectivity"


Since we first began reporting on NSA stories, there has been much debate over who is and is not a "journalist" and whether being a journalist requires "objectivity" (i.e., a pretense to not having opinions). Under this metric, does Bob Schieffer qualify?


Two weeks ago, Schieffer spewed a vicious, one-sided attack on Edward Snowden, accusing him of "putting the nation's security at risk and running away." Echoing Dick Cheney and Rudy Giuliani, Schieffer added:


I know eleven people who died or lost a member of their family on 9/11. My younger daughter lived in Manhattan then. It was six hours before we knew she was safe. I'm not interested in going through that again. I don't know yet if the government has over-reached since 9/11 to reinforce our defenses, and we need to find out. What I do know, though, is that these procedures were put in place and are being overseen by officials we elected and we should hold them accountable.


"I think what we have in Edward Snowden is just a narcissistic young man who has decided he is smarter than the rest of us. I don't know what he is beyond that, but he is no hero. If he has a valid point — and I'm not even sure he does — he would greatly help his cause by voluntarily coming home to face the consequences."


How come you're allowed to have that opinion and be an "objective journalist"? How come none of the people so very upset that those who are reporting on the NSA stories have opinions are objecting to any of that or calling the TV host an "activist"? The answer is clear: "objectivity" in Washington journalism does not mean being free of opinions; it means the opposite: dutifully echoing the official opinions and subjective mindset of those in political power. In the eyes of official Washington and its media mavens, spouting opinions is not a sin. The sin is spouting opinions that deviate from the ones expressed by and which serve the interests of those in power.


Two weeks ago, Schieffer interviewed NSA critic Sen. Mark Udall and told him that his concerns were invalid. "We have laws and all that sort of thing. So the fact that they would have this ability, there's nothing to suggest that they are doing this. And there seem to be a lot of safeguards to prevent them from doing that," Schieffer said. The TV host added: "Fifty-six terror plots here and abroad have been thwarted by the NASA [sic] program. So what's wrong with it, then, if it's managed to stop 56 terrorist attacks? That sounds like a pretty good record." (Schieffer's claims were all false: see, for instance, here, here, and here).


Yesterday, Schieffer led another NSA discussion and invited on three of the most pro-NSA individuals in the country: Hayden, GOP Rep. Peter King, and Democratic Rep. Charles "Dutch" Ruppersberger, whose district includes the NSA and who is the second-largest recipient in Congress of cash from the defense and intelligence industries. No criticisms of the NSA were heard. Instead, Schieffer repeatedly pushed even Hayden to go further in his defense of the NSA and in his attacks on Snowden than Hayden wanted to, asking such tough "questions" like this one, about Obama's proposal to have a "devils' advocate in the FISA court:


"BOB SCHIEFFER: Well-- well let me just cite an example and let's say that the NSA runs across something that they think an attack on the country is imminent--


"GENERAL MICHAEL HAYDEN: Right.


"BOB SCHIEFFER: --and they want to go into the court and say, 'We got to do this right now.'


GENERAL MICHAEL HAYDEN: Right.


"BOB SCHIEFFER: Is it feasible? Is it practical? Is it even possible to say, 'Well, wait, let's-- let's argue this a bit?' I mean it would seem to me that time was of the essence."


They then had this exchange:


"BOB SCHIEFFER: Do you-- do you think, General, that the public understands what it is the NSA is doing?


"GENERAL MICHAEL HAYDEN: No.


"BOB SCHIEFFER: They have this large collection of phone numbers, but if I understand it, they're not listening in on people's conversations.


"GENERAL MICHAEL HAYDEN: No, no.


"BOB SCHIEFFER: They don't do that until they do get a court order.


"GENERAL MICHAEL HAYDEN: That's correct, to an American, to target an American."


Actually, Schieffer's NSA defense is factually false - see here and here - but none of that was mentioned. About Snowden, the tough, adversarial TV reporter asked Hayden: "Do you think he is a traitor, would you go that far?" He then ended his prayer session devoted to Hayden with this exchange about the recent proposal in the House to ban the NSA's bulk collection of phone records:




"BOB SCHIEFFER: But would the National security be damaged if that happened?


"GENERAL MICHAEL HAYDEN: Oh, absolutely, absolutely.


"BOB SCHIEFFER: All right. Well, General, it's always good to have you."


Bob Schieffer is a more slavish, shameless spokesman for the NSA than anyone actually employed by that agency. But what one really finds here is a reverence for military officials like Michael Hayden so extreme that it's actually uncomfortable to watch.


A new Pew poll this weekend found that while the US public holds the media in very low esteem, the one function they actually value is having the media serve as a watchdog over political leaders. The percentage of Americans who value this press function has risen considerably this year.


This has happened despite the likes of NSA advocate and government spokesman Bob Schieffer continuing to dominate and shape establishment TV outlets. The fact that his "objectivity" as a journalist would never be questioned by those who raise such issues demonstrates that this concept of journalistic objectivity has only one real purpose: to delegitimize all views other than those that prop up and glorify those who wield the greatest power in US political and financial circles.

 

[bentom187]

What you're not being told about Booz Allen Hamilton and Edward
[YOUTUBEIF]5xcbi5SH27c#at=335[/YOUTUBEIF]

Ron Paul Discusses His New Channel And The NSA Spying Program
[YOUTUBEIF]wQ97U1zWRjo[/YOUTUBEIF]


Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) says that the U.S. government should grant NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden amnesty so that he can answer questions without the threat of prosecution. Snowden was recently granted temporary asylum in Russia.


California Republican Rep. Tom McClintock wants amnesty for former NSA contractor and NSA leaks source Edward Snowden.

“I think it would be best if the American government granted him amnesty to get him back to America where he can answer questions without the threat of prosecution,” McClintock said. “We have some very good laws against sharing secrets and he broke those laws. On the other hand, he broke them for a very good reason because those laws were being used in direct contravention of our 4th Amendment rights as Americans.”





The Noose Tightens

NSA + DEA + IRS = Tyranny


In its response to Edward Snowden’s revelations about the nature and extent of NSA spying on Americans, the Obama administration has by this time gone through all the stages of grief: denial, reluctant acknowledgment, and – finally – acceptance of the reality that the jig is up.
Initially, we were told that this is really not anything new, and that we should all just move along. When that didn’t work, we were told that, yes, these programs are potentially intrusive, but we needn’t worry – since it’s all "legal," our government is on the job, and "oversight" of the process is firmly in place. When this was exposed by Glenn Greenwald and the Guardian team as a palpable falsehood, the President himself went out to sell the Kool-Aid, assuring us that, although he is satisfied the NSA isn’t doing anything untoward, he understands why someone would assume so – and vaguely promised to put "reforms" in place.
To recap: whenever government officials have tried to reassure the public everything is right with the Fourth Amendment, claiming critics are simply exaggerating, they have been shown to be liars.
Their campaign of deception is underscored by recent revelations about the NSA funneling "intelligence" gathered from spying on Americans to two of the federal government’s most repressive agencies: the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Methinks there are some other NSA whistleblowers who haven’t "come out," so to speak, or else Greenwald and the Guardian are generously sharing material given to them by Snowden with other news outlets, because Reuters came out with the DEA-NSA connection, citing documents which show:
"A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans.
"Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin – not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges."
You didn’t really think information gleaned from your emails and your telephone calls was compartmentalized, did you? Did you imagine these power-hungry control freaks would keep juicy tidbits scooped up in their data dragnet strictly for "national security" purposes? C’mon!
While new details of Data-gate are coming out all the time, the NSA-DEA funnel is easily the most shocking (so far, at least). That’s because the faking of the evidence trail in drug cases potentially puts hundreds if not thousands of cases "won" by federal prosecutors in question – not to mention upcoming cases which could involve similar practices. Information obtained under the authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) "shall not be used in any criminal proceeding, including grand jury proceedings and warrant affidavits, without the express written approval of the Attorney General of the United States" – and it says so right there in the legal boilerplate included in the FBI’s 2004 memo launching an investigation into Antiwar.com, myself, and our webmaster Eric Garris.
That the feds would have such reckless disregard for the rule of law doesn’t shock this hardcore libertarian – but I’ll bet every lawyer in the country is angered beyond words, and if they aren’t they should be disbarred. If this doesn’t convince your typical bourgeois law and order conservative that the Regime has run amok, and has to be radically reined in, then perhaps the exposure of the NSA-IRS connection will do the trick:
"Details of a US Drug Enforcement Administration program that feeds tips to federal agents and then instructs them to alter the investigative trail were published in a manual used by agents of the Internal Revenue Service for two years.
"… A 350-word entry in the Internal Revenue Manual instructed agents of the US tax agency to omit any reference to tips supplied by the DEA’s Special Operations Division, especially from affidavits, court proceedings or investigative files. The entry was published and posted online in 2005 and 2006, and was removed in early 2007."
Reuters goes on to note: "The IRS is among two dozen arms of the government working with the Special Operations Division, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency." Government sneaks share their information: wasn’t that the whole point of the post-9/11 "reform" of the intelligence agencies? The noose is tightening around our necks, and it’s been so effective because they’ve been doing it in the dark – so that by the time we realize what’s happening, it’s too late. Snowden foiled their plans, however, and the ongoing flood of revelations is overwhelming the Regimists in government and the media (or do I repeat myself?) and energizing a grassroots pushback.
Just imagine what the IRS could do with information supplied by the XKeyscorers’ at the NSA! This puts the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups in an entirely new light. For that matter, imagine what the Justice Department could do with it: surely the temptation to read lawyer-client emails, and/or eavesdrop on privileged conversations, has presented itself to government prosecutors. How many have succumbed?
That depends on how long this has been going on, and what the real extent of it is. Which brings it all back home….
Lately I’ve been delving back into the details of the FBI’s memo launching a criminal investigation of myself, our webmaster, and Antiwar.com on the grounds that we are possibly "agents of a foreign power." First thing to note is the date: April 30, 2004. What else happened right around that time? As the Washington Post’s Barton Gellman wrote in the course of reporting the latest NSA revelations:
"On March 12, 2004, acting attorney general James B. Comey and the Justice Department’s top leadership reached the brink of resignation over electronic surveillance orders that they believed to be illegal.
"President George W. Bush backed down, halting secret foreign intelligence-gathering operations that had crossed into domestic terrain. That morning marked the beginning of the end of STELLARWIND, the cover name for a set of four surveillance programs that brought Americans and American territory within the domain of theNational Security Agency for the first time in decades. It was also a prelude to new legal structures that allowed Bush and then President Obama to reproduce each of those programs and expand their reach.
The FBI memo was written two weeks after Cromey’s rebellion, when the dung was hitting the fan over the extent to which the Bush administration’s "Stellarwind" program was violating the clear intent of the law. What this means is that, all the while they were spying on Antiwar.com, and its key personnel, the feds were utilizing methods that even top officials in the Justice Department considered illegal. As Gellman puts it:
"The legal challenge for the NSA was that its practice of collecting high volumes of data from digital links did not seem to meet even the relatively low requirements of Bush’s authorization, which allowed collection of Internet metadata ‘for communications with at least one communicant outside the United States or for which no communicant was known to be a citizen of the United States,’ the NSA inspector general’s report said."
With the NSA sweeping up our emails, and the FBI having full access, the author of the FBI memo had an unlimited amount of information about myself and Garris at his fingertips: and, as you can see in the memo, they searched every database on hand, and then some. By this time, however, with Cromey and top lawyers at the Justice Department threatening to quit and go public, the FBI’s pit bulls were straining at the leash, looking for a way to connect Antiwar.com, myself, and Garris, to "terrorists" operating overseas. And they did so by digging into their files and looking for something – anything! – to link us to foreign persons involved in terrorist activity. What they came up with was this:
"File 17A-LA-234485 serial 55, dated 11/10/2003 indicated that on 10/27/2003, a special agent reviewed the computer hard drives of [several words redacted]. The review of two hard drives revealed visits to many websites between 07/25/2002 and 06/15/2003. One of the websites listed was antiwar.com."
From internal evidence, these files probably relate to a terrorism case originating in Pakistan, having to do with Al Qaeda: so because someone in that country went to our web site, that in and of itself was considered sufficient to unleash the investigative wrath of the Surveillance State on Antiwar.com. From that point in time, what Snowden described as within the power and "legal" authority of the NSA was no doubt done – to me:
"I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the President, if I had a personal e-mail."
This administration doesn’t want you to believe that. The President said the other day that there is already enough "oversight" in place – and, by the way, just in case there isn’t he was just going to institute a few "reforms" right before Snowden shined a light on what had been going on the dark. What a coincidence!
Under George W. Bush, the government was spying on us with "Stellarwind" to such an extent that not even the career bureaucrats in the Justice Department could swallow such blatant illegality. When the Obama administration inherited this emerging police state apparatus, instead of dismantling it – like they promised – they "legalized" it, formalized it, and extended it to include previously unclaimed territory.
That’s where we are today. Which raises the question: where will we be tomorrow? If we let this stand, the answer is – more than halfway down the slippery slope to a de facto police state.
For me, this whole issue is colored by my own peculiar relationship to the Surveillance State – which, if we are to believe the FBI memo, is more intimate than I’d like it to be. The very existence of this memo debunks the assurances of our "progressive" administration that there’s nothing to worry about, and that we should all just trust the government – because if we here at Antiwar.com are targets, then all bets are off. If a small nonprofit organization engaged in the exercise of its First Amendment rights is fair game for the Surveillance State, then who is exempt from being watched, data-mined, and eavesdropped on?
Our rulers – and the War Party, standing behind them – know who their enemies are, and they are right to put us in that category. None of what we’ve so far discovered about their campaign against us is in any way surprising. It’s only natural that the same people who are murdering innocents abroad would seek, with the same lack of regard for legality (let alone morality), to destroy their enemies on the home front. However, in our case – and who knows how many others? – they seem to have seriously overreached. And, because they haven’t yet completely abolished the rule of law in this country, we will pursue them relentlessly, in the courts and in the court of public opinion. While we can’t make any predictions about the former, as far as the latter is concerned we are certain to win.
All of which goes to underscore the point that, in this moment of crisis, this tipping point between the relative freedom of the past and the nightmare of the future, Antiwar.com matters. It’s continued existence is essential – but the simple fact of the matter is that we can’t continue without your help.
The US government clearly engaged in an attempt to frame us up and shut us down – but we caught them red-handed, and we’re fighting back. But we can’t win that fight – or, for that matter, survive for as long as a single week – without your financial support.
If you’ve been to the front page you’ll see that our Autumn fundraising campaign is in full swing. Now I know I say this every fundraiser, but this time it has added resonance: this is the most important fundraising campaign in our entire existence – because Antiwar.com has never been more relevant to the ongoing battle for peace and freedom.
So please – yes, I fully realize these are hard times financially for many people, but this is important: we can’t let the recession accomplish what the FBI could not. We need your help and we need it as soon as possible – make your tax-deductible contribution to Antiwar.com right now.
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
You can check out my Twitter feed by going here. But please note that my tweets are sometimes deliberately provocative, often made in jest, and largely consist of me thinking out loud.
I’ve written a couple of books, which you might want to peruse. Here is the link for buying the second edition of my 1993 book, Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement, with an Introduction by Prof. George W. Carey, a Foreword by Patrick J. Buchanan, and critical essays by Scott Richert andDavid Gordon (ISI Books, 2008).

 

[bentom187]

CIA Director Brennan Confirmed as Reporter Michael Hastings Next Target

This week Elise Jordan, wife of famed journalist Michael Hastings, who recently died under suspicious circumstances, corroborated this reporter's sources that CIA Director, John Brennan was Hastings next exposé project (CNN clip).



Last month a source provided San Diego 6 News with an alarming email hacked from super secret CIA contractor Stratfor’s President Fred Burton. The email (link here) was posted on WikiLeaks and alleged that then Obama counter-terrorism Czar Brennan, was in charge of the government's continued crackdown or witch-hunt on investigative journalists.

After providing the Stratfor email to the CIA for comment, the spymaster's spokesperson responded in lightning speed. Two emails were received; one acknowledging Hastings was working on a CIA story and the other said, “Without commenting on information disseminated by WikiLeaks, any suggestion that Director Brennan has ever attempted to infringe on constitutionally-protected press freedoms is offensive and baseless.”

The emails also prompted a phone from CIA media spokesman Todd Ebitz. He said they were saddened by Michael’s death and reiterated their position that they had a cordial working relationship with the investigative reporter.

On the other hand, Stratfor, specifically Fred Burton, remains nonresponsive.

As for Hastings’ final story, his wife said Rolling Stone would publish the Brennan piece in an upcoming edition of the magazine.



Was speed a factor?

The release of a new surveillance video from a nearby Italian restaurant by Michael Krikorian, an author, freelance blogger who also writes for LA Weekly, reveals a lot of information about Hastings’ final seconds.

An SDSU professor Morteza M. Mehrabadi, Professor and Interim Chair Areas of Specialization: Mechanics of Materials told San Diego 6 News that calculating the speed of Hastings car follows a simple mathematic equation. By using the video and the distance traveled (195 feet) as well as the seconds that lapsed prior to the explosion – in his opinion, the car was traveling roughly 35 mph.

That revelation is important because Jose, an employee of ALSCO a nearby business, and a witness to the accident told KTLA/Loud Labs (Scott Lane) the car was traveling at a high rate of speed and he saw sparks coming from the car and saw it explode BEFORE hitting the tree.

The pre-explosion could possibly explain the flash of light on the video that preceded the appearance of the car in the video. The pre-explosion and slower speed could also explain the minimal damage to the palm tree and the facts the rear tires rested against the curb. It also provides an explanation for the location of the engine and drive train at more than 100 feet from the tree impact area.

This new information prompted another round of FOIA/CPRAs and only adds to the questions that remain unanswered. One of those questions is where was Mr. Hastings going at 4:30 in the morning? Based on the accident location, Hastings was only 1.5 miles from his home and was headed away from his address.

Other unanswered questions point to the contents (computer, phones, notes, etc.) of his home, so far there has been no response from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) FOIA request regarding these issues. Also, numerous FOIAs have been filed with other federal agencies concerning details of Hastings suspicious car “accident.”

I would like to thank the tens of thousands of people following this important story and the supportive comments that include many helpful tips.

 

[idiit]

Published on Aug 13, 2013

Ron Paul Channel FIRST EPISODE!! - Interviews GLENN GREENWALD - August 12, 2013

ron paul's first show focuses on legalize cannabis, upcoming snowden/greenwald nsa revelations that will be devastating to the nwo's "nsa state" methods. this is an epic braodcast imo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=lvGVtkBxmBg&t=3

 

[bentom187]

Why Have Police In America Turned Into Such Ruthless Thugs?

Once upon a time, the police were one of the most respected institutions in America, but now most Americans fear them. Almost every single day there are multiple stories of police brutality or misconduct that make the national news. Just this week, there have been stories about police killing a baby deer at an animal shelter, about police killing a 95-year-old World War II veteran in a retirement home, and about police using legal technicalities to “legally” steal massive amounts of money from innocent citizens. Why are police acting like this? Why have police in America turned into such ruthless thugs? In the case of the baby deer that was killed, 13 armed agents stormed the animal shelter up in Wisconsin where it was being cared for. Is this really the kind of country that we want our children to grow up in? A country where Bambi is hunted down by armed thugs working for the government? Sadly, the story about that deer is not an isolated incident. The truth is that police all over the country kill animals every single day. In fact, police in Chicago have shot 488 animals since 2008. No wonder people are so afraid to have the police come to their homes.

Increasingly, police departments all over the United States are being transformed into military-style units. These days, even very minor violations of the law can result in a SWAT team raid. The following is from a recent article by John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute…


Consider that in 1980, there were roughly 3,000 SWAT team-style raids in the US. By 2001, that number had grown to 45,000 and has since swelled to more than 80,000 SWAT team raids per year. On an average day in America, over 100 Americans have their homes raided by SWAT teams. In fact, there are few communities without a SWAT team on their police force today. In 1984, 25.6 percent of towns with populations between 25,000 and 50,000 people had a SWAT team. That number rose to 80 percent by 2005.

But it is not just local police departments that are being militarized. This is happening on the federal level as well. In fact, according to Whitehead even the Department of Education and NASA now have their own SWAT teams…


When it comes to SWAT-style tactics being used in routine policing, the federal government is one of the largest offenders, with multiple agencies touting their own SWAT teams, including the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Consumer Product Safety Commission, NASA, the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, the US National Park Service, and the FDA.

What in the world does NASA need a SWAT team for?

The police culture in America has fundamentally changed. In the old days, most police officers were extremely helpful and would give you directions or help you get your cat out of a tree.

But if you stop and ask a police officer for help today, you will be lucky if all you get is some dirty language. These days, police all over the nation are actually being trained to bark orders at you and to respond to the least bit of resistance with overwhelming force.

The results of this kind of training can often be extremely tragic. Just the other day, a 95-year-old World War II veteran living in a retirement home near Chicago was murdered by police just because he did not want to undergo high-risk surgery…


A 95-year-old man who served his country during World War II is now dead after police stormed his retirement home with riot shields, Tasered him and shot him with bean bag rounds – all because he adamantly refused to undergo high-risk surgery.

U.S. Army Air Corps veteran John Wrana, who was honorably discharged as a sergeant after he served in the India-Burma campaign, used a walker because family members said he was “wobbly” on his feet, according to the Chicago Tribune. The elderly veteran was shot down by enemy fire during the war.

On July 26, a doctor reportedly told Wrana if he survived surgery, he would likely be put on life support. The elderly man refused the operation, and paramedics attempted to involuntarily transport him for medical treatment. He was sitting in a chair, holding a cane and a shoe horn when police arrived at the Victory Centre senior living facility located just south of Chicago.

Why did the police have to act like that?

Is there any police officer out there that cannot physically handle a 95-year-old man?

That 95-year-old veteran survived fighting the Japanese, but he was not able to survive the thuggish behavior of our own police.

And most Americans don’t realize this, but when police pull you over they can take cash and property from you even if you have not done anything wrong. It is called “civil forfeiture” and it is one of the worst things about U.S. law. Civil forfeiture was described in a recent article by Becket Adams…


Did you know that the police can confiscate items such as cash and property from people who have never been convicted of a crime?

It’s true, and it’s all because of a little-known police tactic called civil forfeiture.

A product of the so-called “war on drugs,” civil forfeiture was part of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 passed by Congress 29 years ago. The bill gives law enforcement officials a portion of the assets seized during drug raids and similar investigations.

The following are some examples of the abuse of civil forfeiture that were detailed in a recent article in the New Yorker…

-Police took the home of an elderly couple in Philadelphia because their son allegedly sold $20 worth of marijuana on their front porch.

-Police in Virginia pulled over a speeder and took $28,500 that was intended to be used to purchase a new parcel of land for a Pentecostal church.

-One town in Texas has actually been caught threatening to take children away from innocent couples if they don’t sign over the cash that they are carrying to the police…


The county’s district attorney, a fifty-seven-year-old woman with feathered Charlie’s Angels hair named Lynda K. Russell, arrived an hour later. Russell, who moonlighted locally as a country singer, told Henderson and Boatright that they had two options. They could face felony charges for “money laundering” and “child endangerment,” in which case they would go to jail and their children would be handed over to foster care. Or they could sign over their cash to the city of Tenaha, and get back on the road. “No criminal charges shall be filed,” a waiver she drafted read, “and our children shall not be turned over to CPS,” or Child Protective Services.

“Where are we?” Boatright remembers thinking. “Is this some kind of foreign country, where they’re selling people’s kids off?” Holding her sixteen-month-old on her hip, she broke down in tears.

If you have not read the new article in the New Yorker that goes into great detail about all of this, you can find it right here.

So why are police all over America acting like this?

Well, one of the primary factors is that they are just following the example that is being set on the federal level.

The entire country is rapidly being transformed into a “Big Brother” police state, and most Americans seem to like it that way.

And with each passing year, it just gets even worse. For example, we were originally told that the TSA would only be hassling us at our airports, but now they are everywhere. As the New York Times recently reported, TSA “VIPR teams” are now being deployed almost everywhere there are large gatherings of people…


With little fanfare, the agency best known for airport screenings has vastly expanded its reach to sporting events, music festivals, rodeos, highway weigh stations and train terminals.

This “VIPR team” program is “growing rapidly”, and apparently these “VIPR teams” conducted 8,800 “unannounced checkpoints” last year…


The program now has a $100 million annual budget and is growing rapidly, increasing to several hundred people and 37 teams last year, up from 10 teams in 2008. T.S.A. records show that the teams ran more than 8,800 unannounced checkpoints and search operations with local law enforcement outside of airports last year, including those at the Indianapolis 500 and the Democratic and Republican national political conventions.

So where is the outrage?

A small minority of the American people have been sounding the alarm about NSA snooping and other abuses, but most Americans don’t really seem to care about these things very much.

In fact, according to a new survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, 47 percent of all Americans don’t even want the media to report on secret government surveillance programs.

So not only do they not want the surveillance to stop, 47 percent of all Americans do not even want to hear anything about it on the news.

How sickening is that?

Sadly, this is not the first survey that has produced this kind of a result. For much more on this, please see my previous article entitled “19 Surveys Which Prove That A Large Chunk Of The Population Is Made Up Of Totally Clueless Sheeple“.

In the end, we will get the government that we deserve. And according to the New York Times, at this point our government is even willing to manufacture fake terror threats in order to distract us from their surveillance activities…


Some analysts and Congressional officials suggested Friday that emphasizing a terrorist threat now was a good way to divert attention from the uproar over the N.S.A.’s data-collection programs, and that if it showed the intercepts had uncovered a possible plot, even better.

What in the world is happening to America?

Is there any hope for us?

 

[bentom187]

Snowden Gives First Interview Since Government LeaksEdward Snowden gave his first interview since he leaked NSA documents.

The interview, which was published in the New York Times, was done through encrypted emails and focused on government and the media. Lara Poitras is a filmmaker who won Snowden’s trust many months ago — she served as the intermediary. Snowden said, “Laura was more suspicious of me than I was of her, and I’m famously paranoid.”

As reported by the Daily Mail:


“Snowden, in describing his methods for choosing a reporter to work with while searching for a way to tell the world what he knew, said that basically all emails are possible targets for government surveillance

Those from news organizations, he suggested, are all the more likely to be read.

‘Assume that your adversary is capable of a trillion guesses per second,’ he wrote to Poitras at the start of their work together, a relationship the New York Times documents alongside the Snowden interview.”

“It should be clear that unencrypted journalist-source communication is unforgivably reckless,” Snowden said.
The whistleblower asserted that the media does not do an adequate job of holding government accountable. This allows government to remain unchecked and become out-of-control, he argued.

“The most important news outlets in America abdicated their role as a check to power for fear of being seen as unpatriotic and punished in the market during a period of heightened nationalism,” he said. “From a business perspective, this was the obvious strategy, but what benefited the institutions ended up costing the public dearly.”

Snowden, who now has asylum in Russia, said the media often turns a blind eye to government spying. “Any unencrypted message sent over the Internet is being delivered to every intelligence service in the world,” he said.

The whistleblower does have hope for the future, however. He thinks that major media outlets are beginning to recover from what he calls a “cold period” of not holding government accountable. He thinks this period began after the 9/11 attacks.

There is no doubt that Snowden himself has been a wakeup call for journalists who work in the mainstream media, who so rarely question things.

 

[LiLWaynE]

This NSA leak shit is crazy. I have been paying attention since day one..... I will admit that I have not clicked the 47+ page links within this thread once, nor have I read a word any ICMAG member has said pertaining to the matter... I wanted to give my unbiased stance on this matter straight off the rip....

to watch what is going on within this administration has really taken me to a level of outrage that I have never really had towards our government until now.....


"its an abomination of an obama nation ............."

and their apparent answer?
roughly 2 months in and holder comes in to announce to the people that low-level, nonviolent drug offenders with no ties to gangs or large-scale drug organizations will no longer be charged with offenses that impose severe mandatory sentences....

ok Obama, so now a great deal of America MIGHT view you in a cooler way now that you decide to allow them to do drugs without fear of imprisonment.... I agree that it is a sound move for our country and the overpopulation of our prison system, BUT, I STILL do not agree with the fact that i have to operate in my own free space in fear that you may possibly target ME via any of my personal electronic property that was not given to me by the government, but paid for by me for my personal use, not yours.... That is a very outrageous concept. No wonder why Kim and Kanye are dropping 1$ million dollars ea on 2 specially made armored vehicles..... all of the shit talking between Kanye and Obama - Kanye has to be shitting himself knowing that every text, call, email, webpage viewed,etc has most likely been thoroughly examined and documented and can be used against him at any time.... No wonder why Kanye is always loopy and upset... he is living in fear .... of his fucking government.......that is not cool... that is tyranny....

so Obama, having your "black" brotha eric holder announce that BS a couple days ago was a nice try at getting your rating level up, but I don't think it will help your outlook as far as the "NSA spying on it's American citizens" problem is concerned.....

then you have your "black" buddy Sanjay Gupta suddenly change his positioning on Medical Marijuana live on one of your state run cable news channels (CNN) not very many minutes ago... is this foreshadowing of whats in store for the American people? Is announcing that marijuana is now legal in the US going to be the next move you make to gain acceptance? I would surely accept that law as well, and would MAYBE think you were cool for probably 5 minutes, but still, that does not help me accept the whole NSA situation..... I love my fucking weed, but I love my fucking freedom more....


I have been commenting online about this situation for over 2 months now, and I honestly would not be surprised if my activity is raising flags to your NSA goon squad computer nerds who want to silence my "activist" kind....

Something seriously proactive has to be done SOON by this administration.

george orwell called it, but people will not accept it.

once my "activist" kind gets to the rest of the country before the rest of the media does then you will have a problem.

trust MUST be restored.

 

[bentom187]

 

[k-s-p]

View Image

Sweet

 

[bentom187]

Former Marine Colonel To Town Council: 'You're Building A Domestic Army; Are You Blind?'
A former Marine colonel recently said at a local council meeting in Concord, NH:

"We're building a domestic army" -Marine Corps Colonel speaks out
[YOUTUBEIF]_Y4zsgymRxE[/YOUTUBEIF]

We did everything we could to build the Iraqi Army, and I'm telling you right now, the Department of Homeland Security would kick their butts.

What we're doing here, and let's not kid about it, is we're building a domestic army and shrinking the military because the government is afraid of its own citizens ...

The last time 10 terrorists were in the same place at the same time was September 11th, and all these [armored] vehicles wouldn't have prevented it, nor would they have helped anything.

We're building an Army over here and I can't believe people aren't seeing it, is everybody blind?

 

[bentom187]

Dr. Dale Livingston - The True Deal With Judges
[YOUTUBEIF]8C5YQ8Qheh4[/YOUTUBEIF]

 

[CatWoman]

Hey LiL Wayne!

 

[idiit]

Revelations about the breathtaking scope of government spying are coming so fast that it’s time for an updated roundup:

Just weeks after NSA boss Alexander said that a review of NSA spying found not even one violation, the Washington Post published an internal NSA audit showing that the agency has broken its own rules thousands of times each year

2 Senators on the intelligence committee said the violations revealed in the Post article were just the “tip of the iceberg”

Glenn Greenwald notes: “One key to the WashPost story: the reports are internal, NSA audits, which means high likelihood of both under-counting & white-washing”.(Even so, the White House tried to do damage control by retroactively changing on-the-record quotes)

The government is spying on essentially everything we do. It is not just “metadata” … although that is enough to destroy your privacy

The government has adopted a secret interpretation of the Patriot Act which allows it to pretend that “everything” is relevant … so it spies on everyone

NSA whistleblowers say that the NSA collects all of our conversations word-for-word

It’s not just the NSA … Many other agencies, like the FBI and IRS – concerned only with domestic issues – spy on Americans as well

The information gained through spying is shared with federal, state and local agencies, and they are using that information to prosecute petty crimes such as drugs and taxes. The agencies are instructed to intentionally “launder” the information gained through spying, i.e. to pretend that they got the information in a more legitimate way … and to hide that from defense attorneys and judges

Top counter-terror experts say that the government’s mass spying doesn’t keep us safe

Indeed, they say that mass spying actually hurts U.S. counter-terror efforts.

They say we can, instead, keep everyone safe without violating the Constitution … more cheaply and efficiently than the current system

There is no real oversight by Congress, the courts, or the executive branch of government. And see this and this.

Indeed, most Congress members have no idea what the NSA is doing. Even staunch defenders of the NSA now say they’ve been kept in the dark

A Federal judge who was on the secret spying court for 3 years says that it’s a kangaroo court

Even the current judges on the secret spying court now admit that they’re out of the loop and powerless to exercise real oversight

A former U.S. president says that the spying program shows that we no longer have a functioning democracy

The chairs of the 9/11 Commission say that NSA spying has gone way too far

Top constitutional experts say that Obama and Bush are worse than Nixon … and the Stasi East Germans

While the government initially claimed that mass surveillance on Americans prevented more than 50 terror attacks, the NSA’s deputy director John Inglis walked that position back all the way to saying that – at the most – one (1) plot might have been disrupted by the bulk phone records collection alone. In other words, the NSA can’t prove that stopped any terror attacks. The government greatly exaggerated an alleged recent terror plot for political purposes (and promoted the fearmongering of serial liars). The argument that recent terror warnings show that NSA spying is necessary is so weak that American counter-terrorism experts have slammed it as “crazy pants”

Even President Obama admits that you’re much less likely to be killed by terrorists than a car accident. So the government has resorted to lamer and lamer excuses to try to justify mass surveillance

Experts say that the spying program is illegal, and is exactly the kind of thing which King George imposed on the American colonists … which led to the Revolutionary War

The top counter-terrorism Czar under Clinton and Bush says that revealing NSA spying programs does not harm national security

The feds are considering prosecuting the owner of a private email company – who shut down his business rather than turning over records to the NSA – for refusing to fork over the information and keep quiet. This is a little like trying to throw someone in jail because he’s died and is no longer paying taxes

Whistleblowers on illegal spying have no “legal” way to get the information out

There are indications that the government isn’t just passively gathering the information … but is actively using it for mischievous purposes

Spying started before 9/11 … and various excuses have been used to spy on Americans over the years

Governments and big corporations are doing everything they can to destroy anonymity

Mass spying creates an easy mark for hackers. Indeed, the Pentagon now sees the collection of “big data” as a “national security threat” … but the NSA is the biggest data collector on the planet, and thus provides a tempting mother lode of information for foreign hackers

Mass surveillance by the NSA directly harms internet companies, Silicon Valley, California … and the entire U.S. economy. And see these reports from Boingboing and the Guardian

IT and security professionals are quite concerned about government spying

Some people make a lot of money off of mass spying. But the government isn’t using the spying program to stop the worst types of lawlessness

Polls show that the public doesn’t believe the NSA … and thinks that the government has gone way too far in the name of terrorism

While leaker Edward Snowden is treated as a traitor by the fatcats and elites, he is considered a hero by the American public

Congress members are getting an earful from their constituents about mass surveillance

The heads of the intelligence services have repeatedly been caught lying about spying. And even liberal publications are starting to say that Obama has been intentionally lying about spying

Only 11% of Americans trust Obama to actually do anything to rein in spying

A huge majority of Americans wants the director of intelligence – Clapper – prosecuted for perjury

While the Obama administration is spying on everyone in the country – it is at the same time the most secretive administration ever (background). That’s despite Obama saying he’s running the most transparent administration ever

A Congressman noted that – even if a mass surveillance program is started for good purposes – it will inevitably turn into a witch hunt

Surveillance can be used to frame you if someone in government happens to take a dislike to you

Government spying has always focused on crushing dissent … not on keeping us safe

An NSA whistleblower says that the NSA is spying on – and blackmailing – top government officials and military officers (and see this)

High-level US government officials have warned for 40 years that mass surveillance would lead to tyranny in America

A top NSA whistleblower says that the only way to fix things is to fire all of the corrupt government officials who let it happen. As the polls above show, the American public is starting to wake up to that fact

^ http://www.zerohedge.com/contribute...ieve-what’s-going-government-spying-americans

the United States government is not "our government". your government is probably not "your government".

as soon as the asleeples/sheeples wake up/pull their head out then we the global human inhabitants, the 99% will be the terrorists they are so afraid of.

terrorists against the cabal.

 

[OrganicBuds]

Can't tell you how many times I have been made fun of or called a conspiracy theorist because I would bring these things to peoples attention. Wish it was one of the situations I was happy about telling you I told you so, but then I think about what is lost, the country that was once great. So where do I go to get my reputation back?