Why Did The FBI Not Warn Occupy Wall St Activist of Assassination Threats?

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PDF -Nationwide FBI [Redacted] monitoring fileon #OWS describes OWS as a "criminal and terrorist threat"

Released FBI documents reveal plans to assassinate Occupy Wall Street Leaders With Snipers

FBI knew of plot to kill OWS activists, remained silent
Only one month into the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations last year, plans were formulated to identify key figures in the movement and execute them with a coordinated assault using sniper rifles, new documents reveal.

Confessions of an Undercover Cop

Bafta-winning film-maker Brian Hill unravels the extraordinary story of Mark Kennedy, the undercover police officer who infiltrated groups of environmentalists to inform on their planned protests.

White House wins fight to keep drone killings of Americans secret

RussiaToday

A federal judge issued a 75-page ruling on Wednesday that declares that the US Justice Department does not have a legal obligation to explain the rationale behind killing Americans with targeted drone strikes.

United States District Court Judge Colleen McMahon wrote in her finding this week that the Obama administration was largely in the right by rejecting Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and The New York Times for materials pertaining to the use of unmanned aerial vehicles to execute three US citizens abroad in late 2011 [pdf].

Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, both US nationals with alleged ties to al-Qaeda, were killed on September 30 of that year using drone aircraft; days later, al-Awlaki’s teenage son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, was executed in the same manner. Although the Obama administration has remained largely quiet about the killings in the year since, a handful of statements made from senior White House officials, including Pres. Barack Obama himself, have provided some but little insight into the Executive Branch’s insistence that the killings were all justified and constitutionally-sound. Attempts from the ACLU and the Times via FOIA requests to find out more have been unfruitful, though, which spawned a federal lawsuit that has only now been decided in court.

Siding with the defendants in what can easily be considered as cloaked in skepticism, Judge McMahon writes that the Obama White House has been correct in refusing the FOIA requests filed by the plaintiffs.

"There are indeed legitimate reasons, historical and legal, to question the legality of killings unilaterally authorized by the Executive that take place otherwise than on a 'hot' field of battle," McMahon writes in her ruling. Because her decision must only weigh whether or not the Obama administration has been right in rejecting the FOIA requests, though, her ruling cannot take into consideration what sort of questions — be it historical, legal, ethical or moral — are raised by the ongoing practice of using remote-controlled drones to kill insurgents and, in these instances, US citizens.

"The Alice-in-Wonderland nature of this pronouncement is not lost on me; but after careful consideration, I find myself stuck in a paradoxical situation in which I cannot solve a problem because of contradictory constraints and rules — a veritable Catch-22,” she writes. “I can find no way around the thicket of laws and precedents that effectively allow the Executive Branch of our Government to proclaim as perfectly lawful certain actions that seem on their face incompatible with our Constitution and laws, while keeping the reason for their conclusion a secret.”

Throughout her ruling, Judge McMahon cites speeches from both Pres. Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder in which the al-Awlaki killings are vaguely discussed, but appear to do little more than excuse the administration’s behavior with their own secretive explanations.

“The Constitution’s guarantee of due process is ironclad, and it is essential — but, as a recent court decision makes clear, it does not require judicial approval before the President may use force abroad against a senior operational leader of a foreign terrorist organization with which the United States is at war — even if that individual happens to be a US citizen,” McMahon quotes Mr. Holder as saying during a March 2012 address at Chicago’s Northwestern University. “Holder did not identify which recent court decisions so held,” the judge replies, “Nor did he explain exactly what process was given to the victims of targeted killings at locations far from ‘hot’ battlefields…”

And while both Mr. Holder and Pres. Obama have discussed the killings in public, including one appearance by the president on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, the Justice Department insists that going further by releasing any legal evidence that supports the executions would be detrimental to national security.

While Judge McMahon ends up agreeing with the White House, she does so by making known her own weariness over how the Obama administration has forced the court to rely on their own insistence that information about the attacks simply cannot be discussed.

“As they gathered to draft a Constitution for their newly liberated country, the Founders — fresh from a war of independence from the rule of a King they styled a tyrant — were fearful of concentrating power in the hands of any single person or institution, and most particular in the executive,” McMahon writes.

Responding to the decision on Wednesday, ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer issued a statement condemning the White House’s just-won ability to relieve itself from any fair and honest explanation as to the justification of Americans.

“This ruling denies the public access to crucial information about the government’s extrajudicial killing of US citizens and also effectively green-lights its practice of making selective and self-serving disclosures,” Jameel writes. “As the judge acknowledges, the targeted killing program raises profound questions about the appropriate limits on government power in our constitutional democracy. The public has a right to know more about the circumstances in which the government believes it can lawfully kill people, including US citizens, who are far from any battlefield and have never been charged with a crime.”

The ACLU says they plan to appeal Judge McMahon’s decision and are currently awaiting news regarding a separate lawsuit filed alongside the Center for Constitutional Rights that directly challenges the constitutionality of the targeted kills.

“The government has argued that case should also be dismissed,” the ACLU notes.
In a Wednesday afternoon statement from the Times, assistant general counsel David McCraw says the paper will appeal the ruling as well.

"We began this litigation because we believed our readers deserved to know more about the US government's legal position on the use of targeted killings against persons having ties to terrorism, including US citizens," McCraw says.

Although she ruled against the plaintiffs, Judge McMahon, says McCraw, explained "eloquently … why in a democracy the government should be addressing those questions openly and fully."

Female US cop caught on tape giving two women body cavity search during routine traffic stop... and 'using the SAME gloves on both'

Daily Mail

• Angel Dobbs, 38, and niece Ashley Dobbs, 24, were pulled over on State Highway 161 near Irving, Texas


• Trooper searched car for marijuana before requesting invasive cavity search


• Older woman claims search by trooper Kellie Helleson irritated an anal cyst she was suffering causing 'severe pain and discomfort'


• Also suing the Texas Department of Public Safety for failing to act on previous complaints about 'violating' searches

Two Texas women are suing after state troopers subjected them to a humiliating and invasive 'roadside body cavity search' that was caught on video.

Female trooper Kellie Helleson is seen in the footage aggressively searching the private parts of Angel Dobbs, 38, and her niece, Ashley Dobbs, 24, in front of passing cars.

The women, who claim the trooper used the same rubber glove for both of them, were initially stopped by Helleson's colleague David Farrell on State Highway 161 near Irving after he saw one of them throw a cigarette butt out the window.
SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

Invasive: Female trooper Kellie Helleson, left, aggressively searched their private parts

Farrell can be heard in the disturbing video questioning the pair about marijuana though he failed to find any evidence of the drug in the vehicle.

However, he requested the women be searches after allegedly claiming they were 'acting weird.'

The lawsuit states he then tried to 'morph this situation into a DWI investigation,' according to the Dallas Morning News.

Angel Dobbs passed a roadside sobriety test and the women were given warnings for littering.

Pulled over: The women were initially stopped by Helleson's colleague David Farrell on State Highway 161 near Irving, Texas

Angel Dobbs said Helleson irritated an anal cyst she suffers from during the search, causing her 'severe and continuing pain and discomfort.'
The suit said: 'Angel Dobbs was overwhelmed with emotion and a feeling of helplessness and reacted stating that Helleson had just violated her in a most horrific manner.'

The two women are also suing the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, Steven McCraw, who they claim ignored previous complaints about 'unlawful strip searches, cavity searches and the like.'

Lawsuit: The women are also suing the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety for ignoring prior complaints about searches

The Dobbs' lawyer Scott H. Palmer said the shocking incident, which was filmed on one of the trooper's dash-mounted cameras, was a roadside 'sexual assault.'

He said the Texas Rangers investigated his clients' complaints but failed to take any action against the troopers.

'You can see what's happening clearly,' he told the Dallas Morning News of the video. 'No one's ever seen the likes of this. We can't let them get away with it.'

 VIDEO  Women given body cavity search during routine TRAFFIC STOP

Attorney General Secretly Granted Gov. Ability to Develop and Store Dossiers on Innocent Americans

Wired
Kim Zetter

 

In a secret government agreement granted without approval or debate from lawmakers, the U.S. attorney general recently gave the National Counterterrorism Center sweeping new powers to store dossiers on U.S. citizens, even if they are not suspected of a crime, according to a news report.

Earlier this year, Attorney General Eric Holder granted the center the ability to copy entire government databases holding information on flight records, casino-employee lists, the names of Americans hosting foreign-exchange students and other data, and to store it for up to five years, even without suspicion that someone in the database has committed a crime, according to the Wall Street Journal, which broke the story.

Whereas previously the law prohibited the center from storing data compilations on U.S. citizens unless they were suspected of terrorist activity or were relevant to an ongoing terrorism investigation, the new powers give the center the ability to not only collect and store vast databases of information but also to trawl through and analyze it for suspicious patterns of behavior in order to uncover activity that could launch an investigation.

The changes granted by Holder would also allow databases containing information about U.S. citizens to be shared with foreign governments for their own analysis.

A former senior White House official told the Journal that the new changes were “breathtaking in scope.”

But counterterrorism officials tried to downplay the move by telling the Journal that the changes come with strict guidelines about how the data can be used.

“The guidelines provide rigorous oversight to protect the information that we have, for authorized and narrow purposes,” Alexander Joel, Civil Liberties Protection Officer for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, told the paper.

The NCTC currently maintains the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment database, or TIDE, which holds data on more than 500,000 identities suspected of terror activity or terrorism links, including friends and families of suspects, and is the basis for the FBI’s terrorist watchlist.

Under the new rules issued in March, the NCTC can now obtain almost any other government database that it claims is “reasonably believed” to contain “terrorism information.” This could conceivably include collections of financial forms submitted by people seeking federally backed mortgages or even the health records of anyone who sought mental or physical treatment at government-run hospitals, such as Veterans Administration facilities, the paper notes.

The Obama administration’s new rules come after previous surveillance proposals were struck down during the Bush administration, following widespread condemnation.

In 2002, the Pentagon’s Total Information Awareness program proposed to scrutinize both government and private databases, but public outrage killed the program in essence, though not in spirit. Although Congress de-funded the program in 2003, the NSA continued to collect and sift through immense amounts of data about who Americans spoke with, where they traveled and how they spent their money.

The Federal Privacy Act prohibits government agencies from sharing data for any purpose other than the reason for which the data was initially collected, in order to prevent the creation of dossiers, but agencies can do an end-run around this restriction by posting a notice in the Federal Register, providing justification for the data request. Such notices are rarely seen or contested, however.

The changes to the rules for the NCTC were sought in large part after authorities failed to catch Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab before he boarded a plane on Christmas Day in 2009 with explosives sewn into his underwear. Abdulmutallab wasn’t on the FBI watchlist, but the NCTC had received tips about him, and yet failed to search other government databases to connect dots that might have helped prevent him from boarding the plane.

As the NCTC tried to remedy that situation for later suspects, legal obstacles emerged, the Journal reports, since the center was only allowed to query federal databases for a specific name or a specific passenger list. “They couldn’t look through the databases trolling for general ‘patterns,’” the paper notes.

But the request to expand the center’s powers led to a heated debate at the White House and the Department of Homeland Security, with Mary Ellen Callahan, then-chief privacy officer for the Department of Homeland Security, leading the charge to defend civil liberties. Callahan argued that the new rules represented a “sea change” and that every interaction a citizen would have with the government in the future would be ruled by the underlying question, is that person a terrorist?

Callahan lost her battle, however, and subsequently left her job, though it’s not known if her struggle over the NCTC debate played a role in her decision to leave.

Bradley Manning: Unlawful Treatment | Interview with Alexa O'Brien

New US-Canada Border Regime: Deep Integration and the North-American Homeland

Global Research

Dana Gabriel

The Beyond the Border deal announced in December 2011 represents the most significant step forward in U.S.-Canada cooperation since NAFTA. Dual action plans are further transforming trade, regulatory and security relations between both countries. Over the next few years, various cross-border initiatives will be rolled out, with some beginning as pilot programs. The U.S. and Canada have laid the framework for a new border regime which is taking their partnership to the next level and pushing the continent closer to a fully integrated North America security perimeter.

The Department of Homeland Security and Canada Border Services Agency recently announced the Phase I pilot of the Entry/Exit program which is part of the Beyond the Border action plan. It will include collecting and exchanging biographic information of third-country nationals, permanent residents of Canada, and lawful permanent residents of the U.S. at four selected land border ports of entry. A fact sheet stressed how this, “is an important step as both countries move towards a coordinated entry/exit system that will strengthen border and immigration programs, support law enforcement, and accelerate the legitimate flow of people and goods into Canada and the United States and across our common border.” The Canadian government is also advancing plans to usebiometrics for immigration and border security that would bring them in line with the U.S. and other countries.

The perimeter security agreement called for implementing, “systematic and automated biographic information-sharing capability by 2013 and biometric information-sharing capability by 2014.” A North American biometric identification system could be used to restrict, track and trace our movements.

On October 4, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and Transport Canada officialsannounced the extension of the expedited screening initiative, TSA Pre✓™ which will now include lanes for Canadian NEXUS members at 27 participating U.S. airports. Canadian Minister of State For Transport Steven Fletcher explained that, “The Government of Canada and the United States are delivering on commitments to include Canadian NEXUS members in designated TSA Pre✓™ lanes as part of the Beyond the Border Action Plan.” He went on to say, “This will mean smarter and faster air travel for Canadian NEXUS members traveling within the U.S., while maintaining a high level of aviation security.” TSA Administrator John Pistole acknowledged that, “The inclusion of Canadian NEXUS members in TSA Pre✓™ is an important step in further harmonizing the security screening process between the U.S. and Canada.” Under NEXUS, pre-screened travelers are granted expedited access across the border, by air, land or sea. As part of the perimeter security deal, both countries are expanding and integrating trusted traveler programs.

The Next-Generation pilot project which would permit U.S. agents on Canadian soil is on hold while legal issues are being resolved. The security perimeter agreement stated that both countries would, “create integrated teams in areas such as intelligence and criminal investigations, and an intelligence-led uniformed presence between ports of entry.” The plan which is a land-based version of the Shiprider program was scheduled to be deployed this summer. Allowing U.S. agents to cross the border and pursue suspects into Canada poses a threat to sovereignty and could infringe on personal privacy laws. The pilot project is part of the process of acclimating U.S. policing activities in Canada and could later be expanded.

Last month, the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency established a pre-clearance initiative pilot project on import re-inspection activities for fresh meat. This is tied to the Beyond the Border deal and is aimed at streamlining meat inspections at the U.S.-Canada border. Just as the joint program was being rolled out, XL Foods in Alberta, Canada announced a massive recall of meat products due to E. coli contamination. This came on the heels of a letter from the Safe Food Coalition to the USDA citing concerns that food safety could be compromised and requesting that the border inspection pilot be halted. Some of the potential tainted meat could have been shipped to at least eight U.S. states. In a press statement, the Executive Director of Food & Water Watch, Wenonah Hauter pointed out that, “the Obama Administration and the Harper Government in Canada have been plotting to eliminate the very border inspection program that tipped off authorities that there was a major problem brewing with the products originating from the XL plant.” Plans to further deregulate food safety inspections could lead to more trouble in the future.

In September, Transport Canada and the United States Coast Guard launched a pilot project that will include joint Port State Control inspections of non-Canadian and non-U.S. flagged vessels in the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway. Rear Adm. Mike Parks, Commander of the U.S. Coast Guard Ninth District described how, “This initiative is in keeping with President Obama’s and Prime Minister Harper’s Beyond the Border Perimeter Security Initiative protecting the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway region, which provides common access to the heart of North America. Our goal is to make vessel inspections more efficient and facilitate American and Canadian business on both sides of our shared border.” The program is outlined in the Regulatory Cooperation Council action plan and establishes a, “safety and security framework for the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway that will align the two countries’ regulatory requirements. This pilot project will look for efficiencies in order to reduce duplicate inspections and impediments to trade.” When completed, recommendations will be made on whether to form a permanent binational foreign vessel inspection program.

NAFTA partners, in conjunction with multinational corporations and influential think tanks are pushing for deeper North American integration. As far as the upcoming U.S. election goes, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are both committed globalists and have no intentions of upholding the constitution or protecting what is left of American sovereignty. The notion of real choice is now even more of an illusion. Minus the Democrat and Republican rhetoric, it’s essentially the same policies, same agenda, and the same team. It doesn’t matter who wins the presidency, the path towards a North American Union will continue.

beyourownleader@hotmail.com

. Visit his blog at Be Your Own Leader

US court calls CIA emperor without clothes

Press TV

A US appeals court in Washington has denounced President Barack Obama’s CIA-run policy of assassination drone strikes, calling the CIA an emperor without clothes. 


On Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) took the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to court over Pentagon’s controversial drone policy after the US government refused to release documents related to the drone attacks, also known as the “targeted killing” program.

Judge Merrick Garland told government lawyer Stuart Delery, "If the CIA is the emperor, aren't you asking us to say that the emperor has clothes even when the emperor's bosses say it doesn't?"

The ACLU has tried to file Freedom of Information Act requests to get information on the CIA's drone program.

However, the US spy agency has refused to respond to the requests, saying that it cannot confirm the existence of the program.

The assassination drone program is cloaked in secrecy, even as officials up to President Obama admit it exists.

On January 31, 2012, Obama confirmed that the United States uses the pilotless aircraft in Pakistan and other countries.

In 2009, former director of the CIA, Leon Panetta said, "Because these are covert and secret operations, I can't go into particulars. I think it does suffice to say that these operations have been very effective."

“The notion that the CIA’s targeted killing program is a secret nothing short of absurd,” ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer said on Tuesday.

The US regularly uses the unmanned aircraft for attacks on Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, and Afghanistan, claiming the airstrikes target Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, but locals say civilians are the main victims of the assaults.

The aerial attacks were initiated by former US President George W. Bush but have been escalated under Obama.

Occupy not safe from FBI surveillance

One of the main issues many Occupy Wall Street protesters spoke of during the last year was their concern that they were being watched by the police. The American Civil Liberties Union has obtained documents they had to file a lawsuit to get their hands on, and in these paper they've found proof that federal surveillance targeted protesters at Occupy encampments. J D Tuccille, managing director for Reason 24-7 News, joins RT's Kristine Frazao to discuss the matter.

Young Persons Called to Private Grand Jury for Owning Books

TheSoundandNoise

Just a few weeks ago, an FBI task force raided a home* in Portland, Oregon very early in the morning. They broke down the front door with a battering ram and threw in a stun grenade, which is non-lethal but produces a very loud and disorienting noise and a blinding bright light. The team locked down the building and secured the sleepy, compliant occupants. The operation was one of several which also occurred in Olympia, WA and Seattle, WA, involving some 60-80 officers.

Just who were these dangerous criminals, these domestic terrorists whose threat level is so high that an FBI team with stun grenades, battering rams, and assault rifles needed to burst into their homes in the wee hours of the morning?

Why, it’s these two young folks,

Leah-Lynn Plante:\
\

Reportedly, the FBI search warrant was for black clothing, paint, sticks, computers and cell phones, and ‘anarchist materials or literature.’ According to an FBI Domestic Terrorism guide published by greenisthenewred.com, “anarchists are criminals seeking an ideology to justify their actions,” and are “not dedicated to a particular issue.” Common meeting places are “college campuses, underground clubs, coffee houses/ internet cafes.” The implication is that owning “anarchist” literature is enough to indicate to the FBI that one is a criminal – even if that person happens to be a student studying political thought. Or maybe particularly if you are a student – the FBI document states that anarchists are “educated persons of various backgrounds, often students.”

What even counts as anarchist material? Given the vitriolic US political rhetoric of anti-socialism, you might think a book by Karl Marx or about Tommy Douglas would count. What about someone likeShulamith Firestone? Hell, what about Walt Whitman?

Leah-Lynn and Matt have since been subpoenaed and ordered before a Grand Jury hearing, which is a private hearing used to determine if there is sufficient evidence to indict someone with a federal crime. During the proceedings of a Grand Jury, the defendant is not allowed an attorney to represent her or him. This means that a Grand Jury is essentially a group of twenty or so judges, a prosecutor looking to indict someone with a felony, and Leah-Lynn Plante, vegan. A Grand Jury is also secret, so we do not know andare not allowed to know what is going on in the courtroom.

Leah was first called before a Grand Jury back on August 2. She refused to co-operate with the jury proceedings, giving them only her name and date of birth. She refused to answer any other questions and explicitly stated she would not talk about any other people. Historically, the Grand Jury process was intended to protect citizens from slanderous or malicious prosecution. However,  Grand Juries have been used to isolate members of political activist groups and use the fear of imprisonment to gain information about other groups and persons. Leah was re-subpoenaed, and returned to court yesterday, where she again refused to co-operate. She has been re-re-subpoenaed without yet receiving a date for her next hearing.

All this is because someone vandalized a Seattle courthouse on May Day. Leah has publicly stated that she does not condone what happened on May Day, and that she was not in Seattle during that time. She has made it clear that her refusal to co-operate is not a strategy to protect criminals, but is rather a protest against a legal system which is unconcerned with the civil rights of citizens. Considering that she could be held in contempt of court and sentenced to jail time, we should take what she says seriously. Matt Duran, also subpoenaed and brought before a Grand Jury, has already been held in contempt of court and is currently in U.S. Federal custody. His contempt hearing was made private by the presiding Judge, a move unprecedented since the McCarthy era.

You know, they arrested Emma Goldman a couple times. I learned that from reading about her. In a book I own.

click here for an audio interview on the history of dissent, political repression, and punk in the Pacific Northwest!

You can read Leah-Lynn’s statement here,

and you can read Matt Duran’s statement here.

For ongoing information, check in with http://nopoliticalrepression.wordpress.com/

Write to Matt in Jail!

Writing to prisoners is an easy and important way to help ease the isolation of imprisonment. Please write letters to Matt!

* Editor’s note – for the past few days, this link was to an article about Leah-Lynn Plante and the Northwest Grand Jury on the National Lawyer’s Guild blog. The Lawyer’s Guild blog appears to no longer have any content posted on it.

US data whistleblower: 'It's a violation of everybody's constitutional rights'

Former National Security Agency official Bill Binney says US is illegally collecting huge amounts of data on his fellow citizens

Guardian
Paul Harris

Bill Binney believes he helped create a monster. Sitting in the innocuous surroundings of an Olive Garden in the Baltimore suburbs, the former senior National Security Agency (NSA) official even believes he owes the whole American people an apology.

Binney, a tall, professorial man in his late 60s, led the development of a secret software code he now believes is illegally collecting huge amounts of information on his fellow citizens. For the staunch Republican, who worked for 32 years at the NSA, it is a civil liberties nightmare come true.

So Binney has started speaking out as an NSA whistleblower – an act that has earned him an armed FBI raid on his home. "What's happening is a violation of the constitutional rights of everybody in the country. That's pretty straightforward. I could not be associated with it," he told the Guardian.

Binney, a career NSA employee who first volunteered for the army in the mid-1960s, has now become a high-profile thorn in the side of NSA chiefs when they deny the programme's existence.

At a hacking conference this summer in Las Vegas, NSA director General Keith Alexander said the NSA "absolutely" did not keep files on Americans.

"Anyone who would tell you that we're keeping files or dossiers on the American people knows that's not true," Alexander told an audience of computer and security experts. But Binney himself was at the same conference and publicly accused Alexander of playing a "word game".

"Once the software takes in data, it will build profiles on everyone in that data," he told a convention panel there.

Binney's outspokenness has earned him media appearances on shows across America's political spectrum ranging from ultra-conservative Glenn Beck's TV show to the liberal radio icon of Democracy Now.

"This is not a political issue. People on both sides are concerned," Binney said.

The story Binney tells is one of extreme over-reaction by America's national security establishment post-9/11. He recounts developing a small software system, called ThinThread, in the late 1990s at the NSA where he was the technical director of the organisation's 6,000-strong World Geopolitical and Military Analysis Reporting Group.

ThinThread correlated data from emails, phone calls, credit card payments and Internet searches and stored and mapped it in ways that could be analysed.

Binney wanted to use ThinThread to track foreign threats but it worked too well and kept catching data on Americans too.

So Binney's team built in safeguards that encrypted that data. But, by 2000, the NSA decided to go with developing a larger scale programme called Trailblazer to be built by outside contractors (that eventually failed to make it past the design stage) and ThinThread was effectively mothballed.

Then September 11 happened. Within a few weeks, Binney says, he realised parts of ThinThread were now being used by the NSA in a massive and secret surveillance operation.

But his safeguards had been removed allowing for far more targeted surveillance of American citizens. "I knew the dangers so I built in protections. And you could still find the bad guys with the protections in it. But that wasn't what they wanted so they took those things out," Binney said.

Binney quickly left the agency and kept his silence. But that was not the end of the story. In late 2005, the New York Times broke the story that the NSA was engaged in large-scale warrantless electronic surveillance.

The scandal eventually led to the passing of amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 2008 which, many critics say, simply gave legal protection to the agency's data-mining operations.

The programme has thus effectively continued under the Obama administration, which has launched a ruthless crackdown on national security whistleblowers, especially those leaking NSA secrets.

Binney gradually began to protest behind the scenes. Yet that earned him an FBI raid by armed agents as he showered at his home. "Here's a guy coming into my shower and pointing a gun at me. I'd been co-operating with these people. Why are they doing this?" he said.

Over the past year Binney has gone fully public, detailing what he believes is a massive effort under the Obama administration to collect virtually all electronic data in the country, from Facebook posts to Google searches to emails.

It is a deeply secret programme, Binney says, that is called Stellar Wind. He points to the NSA's creation of a giant data centre at Bluffdale in Utah as part of the system.

The gigantic building is set to cost $2bn and be up and running by 2013.

It is being designed to store huge amounts of accessible web information – such as social media updates – but also information in the "deep web" behind passwords and other firewalls that keep it away from the public.

As an example of Stellar Wind's power, Binney believes it is hoovering up virtually every email sent by every American and perhaps a good deal of the people of the rest of the world, too.

"I didn't expect it from my government. I thought we were the good guys. We wear white hats, right?" he said.

For Binney, Bluffdale is a symbol that the national security policy conducted by Obama has been little different than that of Bush.

Obama has renewed the Patriot Act, tried to broaden the powers of detention of American citizens for national security reasons, and deployed the anti-spy Espionage Act more times than all other presidents combined.

"They are still continuing the same programmes – actually, Obama is doing more in some areas," Binney said. Nor is Binney optimistic of rolling back the surveillance.

Last week the House of Representatives voted for a five-year extension to the controversial 2008 FISA amendments.

Yet Binney believes there has been too much of a sacrifice of civil liberties in order to fight terrorism. "People should feel the ability to go out there and and do anything that they want to without being looked at all the time. Monitored. Watched," he said.

"The terrorists win, OK? We've lost because we have destroyed our society just to combat them and there was really no reason to do that."

Binney is also determined to keep on speaking out. "I don't see any other recourse. Everybody needs to wake up to what we are doing here and whether we want it or not. There is a big hole at the end of this tunnel and it drops off to nowhere." he said.

Mainstream Expose of NDAA Illegality

BeforeIt'sNews

House Reauthorizes Unconstitutional Surveillance Law, FISA

LibertyCrier

The House today passed a reauthorization of an unconstitutional domestic spying bill that violates the Fourth Amendment and gives vast, unchecked surveillance authority to the government. The FISA Amendments Act, originally passed in 2008, authorizes the National Security Agency to conduct dragnet surveillance of Americans’ international emails and phone calls.

The Senate is expected to take up the law’s reauthorization later this year. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has put a hold on the bill citing privacy and transparency concerns.

“Yet again, the House has rubberstamped a law so broad and vague that, despite its passage four years ago, we still have little idea how the government is using it,” said Michelle Richardson, ACLU legislative counsel. “It is at the very heart of the Fourth Amendment that Americans and their communications are fiercely protected from government intrusion. This law should be amended to include much stronger privacy protections when the Senate takes it up later this year.”

On October 29, the Supreme Court will hear the ACLU’s challenge to the constitutionality of the law. The plaintiffs include human rights, media and legal organizations. The government claims that the plaintiffs should not be able to sue without first showing that their own communications have been or will be monitored under the statute – information that the government refuses to provide.

For more information about the ACLU’s legal challenge the FAA, go to http://www.aclu.org/national-security/amnesty-et-al-v-clapper

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (202) 675-2312 or media@dcaclu.org

Austin Police Provocateurs Coordinated With Houston Through Fusion Center

OccupyAmericaSocialNetwork

For more on the Gulf Port 7 and Austin Police Infiltration of Occupy Austin see Undercover Austin Officer Enabled Houston Felonies, Judge Campbell Is Not Amused, and Kit’s Gulf Port 7 Interview.

Austin Police coordinated felony arrests at the Gulf Port Shutdown with Houston Police through the fusion center known as Austin Regional Intelligence Center.

The pre-trial hearings for the Gulf Port 7 case continued on September 6, 2012; although the Austin Police Department presented the information Judge Joan Campbell requested at the previous hearing, most of it was done in camera – in private, where defense and accused activists could not access it. What was revealed is troubling — that APD coordinated the day’s actions with Houston police through the local Texas fusion center, known as Austin Regional Intelligence Center. This, of course, raises the question of to what degree federal authorities were involved in the entrapment of Occupy activists; I personally witnessed Department of Homeland Security vehicles on the ground at the Occupy Houston encampment on December 12, in addition to photographing men in unknown military-like uniforms who were observing the port shutdown.

Further, it appears that officials involved may have made a decision to withhold information that was requested by Ronnie Garza’s defense attorney. This is in direct violation of Brady disclosure. Campbell’s frustration with the behavior of the state is clear in court transcripts, as she gives lawyers a lesson in this essential aspect of criminal law:

Read more:

Austin Police Provocateurs Coordinated With Houston Through Fusion Center - posted by james at Occupy America Social Network

Obama Has Already Appealed The Indefinite Detention Ruling

Business Insider
David Seaman

This sent a chill down my spine. In the midst of my interview with Tangerine Bolen, a plaintiff in the lawsuit against the NDAA's indefinite detention provisions & coordinator of StopNDAA.org, she received an email from her lawyer to inform her that the Obama administration has already appealed yesterday's historic court ruling. That court ruling found indefinite detention to be unconstitutional, and issued a permanent block of that provision. Listen to the full interview directly below.

For a man who doesn't want the ability to order the military to abduct and detain citizens - without charge or trial - it is quite odd that his administration is appealing yet again.

And, as stated in the interview, I would love to speak with someone from the administration on-record about this and hash it out. Why do you need this power?

Listen on iTunes: Click here. (Free)

Listen on PodOmatic: Click here. (Free; streaming)

Fax-in Today - support NW grand jury resistors!

The Committee to Stop FBI Repression is circulating this call to action from the Committee Against Political Repression. Please send your fax today!

Dear CAPR supporter:

Two anarchists have been subpoenaed to appear before the secret grand jury in Seattle this Thursday, September 13. Previous hearings have been delayed through a combination of legal maneuvering and an outright refusal to testify. This time it looks as though U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan is preparing to jail those who refuse to testify.

Below you will find a Fax Petition demanding that she end this witch-hunt. To join the petition effort, please follow these simple steps:

1) Go to http://faxzero.com/

2) Fill out the form with your name and email address under Sender information.

3) Fill out Jenny A Durkan under Receiver Name and (206) 553-0882 for the Receiver Fax Line.

4) Copy the text at the bottom of this email into the box that says “Type text to appear on the cover page”. Personalize the text in the box to include your name and also anything else you would like to say.

5) Enter the confirmation code

6) Click the Send Free Fax Now button at the bottom of the box.

7) Check your email and click on the confirmation link. Clicking on this link will actually send your fax.

8) Wait for the email that confirms that your fax has been sent.

9) Once you have sent the fax, please CALL the U.S. Attorney's office at (800) 797-6722 to confirm that they received it. We suggest something like the following script:

"Hello my name is Agnes Driver, and I just sent your office a fax to ask that Jenny Durkan call off tomorrow's grand jury hearing and end the investigation. I'm calling now to confirm that you received it. Would you check for me please?"

The person answering the phone may offer some general assurance that they are receiving faxes. If they do, please be insistent: "Please, it is very important to me that Ms. Durkan receive my message, and that my voice be added to the opposition to this grand jury. Would you please double-check to verify that you've received my message. My name, again, is Agnes Driver."

It may take a few minutes for them to find your fax. Please be patient while they do. Once they confirm that they have your message, remember to thank the staff for accommodating you.

10) Please send CAPR a message at nopoliticalrepression@gmail.com, to let us know that you sent the message, and what response you received when you called.

Below is the Fax message to send:

End the Grand Jury Investigation of the Anarchist Movement

(Fax Petition)

To: Jenny Durkan

United States Attorney for Western Washington

Seattle, Washington

Fax Line : (206) 553-0882

Ms. Durkan:

I am writing to add my voice to the hundreds of organizations and thousands of individuals who have telephoned you, written and signed declarations, and demonstrated in cities around the country demanding an end to the grand jury witch-hunt of anarchists and aligned activists in the Pacific Northwest.

This case clearly shows that your office is persecuting political dissent. It is despicable that the US attorney and the FBI are harassing and intimating this group of people for their political beliefs. I demand that the grand jury investigation be ended immediately, that the governments repression of social movements stop, and that any items seized in the raids be returned to their rightful owners.

signed,

There Was A Secret Ruling Against The NSA For Spying On Americans

Business Insider
Michael Kelley

The "secret room" in AT&T's Folsom Street office in
San Francisco believed to be one of several
Internet wiretapping facilities at AT&T offices around the
country feeding data to the NSA.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is suing the Justice Department for details of last month's ruling by a secretive U.S. court that National Security Agency's domestic spying program violated the U.S. Constitution, Jon Brodkin of arstechnica reports.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) found that "on at least one occasion" the NSA had violated the Fourth Amendment’s restriction against unreasonable searches and seizures.

The decision is classified “because of the sensitive intelligence matters" it concerns, according to a letter from Seb. Ron Wyden (D-OR) to Congress that was acquired by Wired.

The EFF wants the information because of its current lawsuit against the NSA (i.e. Jewel vs. NSA) that alleges the U.S. government operates an illegal mass domestic surveillance program. Three NSA whistleblowers—including William Binney—agreed to provide evidence that the NSA has been running a domestic spying program since 2001.

The kicker is that there is ample evidence that the NSA has gone above and beyond the powers granted through the 2008 FISA Amendment Act by actively spying on the electronic communications of American citizens within the U.S. and by coercing service providers to feed it any and all information it wants.

That is what FISC found and what the government does not want to admit.

$3.5 Billion in Federal Stimulus Funds Used for Installing "Smart Meters"

Seattle Times
Sarah Kuta

Smart meter movement stirs rowdy debate in Texas

Thelma Taormina keeps a pistol at her Houston-area home to protect against intruders. But one of the last times she used it, she said, was to run off a persistent utility company worker who was trying to replace her old electricity meter with a new digital unit.

Thelma Taormina keeps a pistol at her Houston-area home to protect against intruders. But one of the last times she used it, she said, was to run off a persistent utility company worker who was trying to replace her old electricity meter with a new digital unit.

"This is Texas." she declared at a recent public hearing on the new meters. "We have rights to choose what appliances we want in our home."

A nationwide effort to upgrade local power systems with modern equipment has run into growing resistance in Texas, where suspicion of government and fear of electronic snooping have made a humble household device the center of a politically charged showdown over personal liberty.

Some angry residents are building steel cages around their electric meters, threatening installers who show up with new ones and brandishing Texas flags at boisterous hearings about the utility conversion. At a recent hearing at the state Capitol in Austin, protesters insisted everyone present recite the Pledge of Allegiance before the meeting could begin.

"It's Gestapo. You can't do this," said Shar Wall of Houston, who attended the Public Utility Commission meeting wearing a large red "Texas Conservative" pin. "I'm a redneck Texas girl and I won't put up with it."

Utilities began replacing old-style electricity meters across the country about seven years ago as part of an effort to better manage demand on an increasingly strained power grid. New "smart meters" transmit and receive data remotely as electricity is used. Utility officials say they can use the real-time information to help prevent grid overloads during extreme temperatures. The devices would also promote conservation, such as cycling air conditioners on and off during peak demand periods.

In 2009, President Barack Obama devoted $3.5 billion in federal stimulus funds to help utility companies make the upgrade.

The conversion has triggered opposition in a number of states. Some residents have questioned the health impact of the radio waves the devices emit or the possibility that hackers could get confidential data from the transmissions.

Officials have downplayed the hazards, but several states, including California, Vermont, Maine and Nevada, have allowed residents to opt out of the new system. In most cases, residents would have to pay extra to have a utility employee come to their house to read their old meter.

Texas utilities have installed nearly 6 million smart meters, or 87 percent of their goal, since the state passed authorizing legislation in 2005. But as the project moves toward completion by 2016, the opposition is getting louder. It also carries the distinct flavor of an ultraconservative state that relishes its history as an independent republic before joining the United States.

State utility commission hearings on the meters have featured as many references to the Founding Fathers, the Revolutionary War and the Constitution as to the technical demands on the power system.

At a recent session, a staff presentation included a slide saying the new meters "are not meant to spy on you." Waiting to testify, activist David Akin replied, "Yes they are!"

Some say the meters would allow the police or other government agencies to tell when a person was awake and what they were doing in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

"I'm not going to let somebody else control what I do in my house," said Ginger Russell, who recently replaced her "No Smart Meters" sign with a steel cage around her home's analog meter in the East Texas town of Magnolia.

Those emphasizing privacy concerns cite a report issued by the U.S. Department of Energy in January that said many companies had not done enough to protect the smart meters from hackers. Some studies have also added to the health concerns. A branch of the World Health Organization last year called radio-frequency radiation from cellphones, utility meters and other devices a "possible carcinogen."

However, the Federal Communications Commission has rated the smart meters as safe, saying they are considered unlikely to cause bodily tissue heating or electric shock. The radio frequency radiation levels are much lower than those emitted by cellphones, supporters say.

Utility commission officials say the security concerns are being addressed and that the overwhelming majority of Texans accept the new meters. The commission will consider this fall whether to allow Texas residents to opt out.

"We believe this new technology is a direction that benefits consumers from an energy efficiency standpoint," said Leticia Lowe, spokeswoman for CenterPoint Energy, which serves the Houston area. She added, "We're moving forward with an industry that hadn't changed in over 100 years."

In the meantime, CenterPoint has directed its employees to leave immediately when a resident rejects a smart meter. The company says contract installers are encountering tough resistance in some neighborhoods.

"We're concerned about the safety of utility workers and other public service personnel legitimately doing their jobs," said CenterPoint spokesman Floyd LeBlanc.

Taormina, 55, says she's keeping her pistol handy just in case. The first smart meter installer who came to her house last summer wouldn't leave until she got the weapon out, she said.

"If someone comes on my property and assaults me - that's the idea of having a weapon is to equalize my little self against somebody that's bigger than me," she said.

Warning to Activists: Agent Provocateurs Want to Make You a Terrorist

Intelhub

J.G. Vibes

For hundreds of years the establishment has used agent provocateurs as a means of discrediting protest movements that spoke out against the injustice that was being perpetrated by the ruling class.

Provocateurs are basically undercover agents, who infiltrate activist groups and try to provoke or push various members of these groups into doing something illegal that they can then immediately be arrested for.

Even if the activists aren’t arrested, the incident can then be used as a propaganda piece against dissenters everywhere.  This is how things have played out throughout the course of American history, and im sure it goes back much further than that.

In the past you could expect one of these snakes to be at protests trying to get people to throw bricks through windows, or even just doing it themselves when all else failed.  This usually supplied the pretext for violent crackdowns on protestors, and a justification for the use of excessive force.

However, in recent years with the general population becoming more discontent, these provocateurs are taking more extreme measures and hatching plots that could get innocent protestors sent away for life, or worse.

I’m talking of course about the fabricated “terror” plots that the establishment has been walking people into since at least the signing of the patriot act.  First these plots were surrounding Muslims on airplanes with fake bombs.  This trend continued for years and resulted in the prosecution of several people.

These “underwear bomber” cases, as they later came to be known, served as the excuse for the expansion of the TSA and the rollout of the radioactive naked body scanners that have become so controversial.

Since occupy wall street became a household name, the government is now turning their attention away from the phoney Muslim threat and towards the dissenters at home who have now been branded “domestic terrorists”.

This past weekend in Chicago, a group of young occupy protesters were infiltrated by a federal agent, who supplied them with all sorts of contraband and then immediately had them arrested.  This set up was nearly identical to one that took place just weeks ago, prior to the mayday protests in Ohio.

The police are putting forward a narrative about violent terrorist masterminds, when in reality it was the undercover agents themselves who put the plot into motion and provided all of the materials.

These incidents should serve as a warning to activists everywhere to keep their guard up and to avoid people who start talking about this kind of sketchy activity.  Many of you reading this probably think that this should go without saying, but it’s become apparent that it is not very difficult for police to ensnare people in these false flag set ups.

This should be an issue that is discussed regularly at activist meetings and occupy general assembly’s worldwide.

While this may seem like a topic that should be unspoken and common sense, it is still one of the most damaging tactics that has been used against dissenters thus far, both in terms of public relations and the toll taken on the lives of those who get caught up in these traps.

As we have seen many times in the past, hurting people, blowing things up and destroying property accomplishes nothing for the cause of freedom.  This kind of behavior actually provides the mainstream media with propaganda opportunities that will be used to perpetuate the myth that anyone who disagrees with authority is dangerous and violent.

As long as this myth endures the public will continue to fund and allow their own enslavement, as well as yours and mine.

From now on we should all be especially careful about the kinds of things that new friends are bringing into our houses.  If someone approaches you acting shady, or offers to give you anything illegal especially related to weapons or explosive material, you need to get yourself out of that situation as smoothly as possible and don’t accept anything that person is going to offer you.

Try to disagree with them as politely as possible if they mention anything about violence, anything that is said to an undercover cop will definitely come back up in court and be used to demonize the accused.

With two cases like this popping up in two different cities so close to each other, it is quite possible that there are undercover units in activist movements in every city, especially the occupy movement due to all of the press that it got last season.

Be careful out there, and make sure your friends and local community members are aware that there has been widespread infiltration of protest movements and that they should be highly suspicious of people who start talking openly about violent or destructive behavior.

Recent sources:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/how-fbi-entrapment-is-inventing-terrorists-and-letting-bad-guys-off-the-hook-20120515

http://wagingnonviolence.org/2012/05/entrapment-of-cleveland-5-and-the-nato-3-is-nothing-new/

This article originally appeared at Alchemy of the Modern Renaissance

Feel free to email me at jgvibes@aotmr.com with any tips, suggestions or disagreements.

J.G. Vibes is an author, and artist — with an established record label. In addition to featuring a wide variety of activist information, his company Good Vibes Promotions hosts politically charged electronic dance music events. You can keep up with him and his new book Alchemy of the Modern Renaissance, at his website www.aotmr.com and facebook page.