The Truth Or The Fight

Kucinich jeers: Congress is ‘complicit’ in violating Americans’ constitutional rights

By Stephen C. Webster

In the wake of congressional Democrats’ reauthorization and extension of the USA Patriot Act, few elected Democrats have been as vocal about the post-9/11 security measures as they were during the Bush administration.

Leave it to stalwart House progressive Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) to raise a rallying cry against what he called America’s love of its fears.

“This legislation extends three problematic provisions of the PATRIOT Act and, at the same time, leaves some of the most egregious provisions in place, absent any meaningful reform and debate,” he declared in a media advisory.

The specific provisions he cited are the Patriot Act’s powers to conduct roving wiretaps, conduct surveillance of people not thought to have any association with terrorism and tap into your personal records, such as library accounts.

The extensions were approved by Congress and sent to President Obama on Thursday, several days before the Patriot Act’s most nefarious portions were set to expire. President Obama had yet to sign the bill at time of this writing.

The Associated Press called the votes a “political victory for Republicans.”

Some Senate Democrats did attempt to propose some modifications to the legislation that would have allowed for greater oversight, but they were ignored. Democratic leadership bowed to the wishes of Republicans and conducted a voice vote on Wednesday, upon which the one-year extension was passed. The House voted 315-97 in favor on Thursday.

“Thrown away were restrictions and greater scrutiny on the government’s authority to spy on Americans and seize their records,” AP added.

“While I strongly support using the most robust tools possible to go after terrorists, Congress must revise and narrow — not extend — Bush era policies,” said Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-CA),according to Reuters.

Kucinich’s scorn for the legislation was even more pronounced.

“Despite years of documentation evidencing abuse of these provisions during the Bush Administration, the Department of Justice has failed to hold Bush Administration officials accountable for illegal domestic spying by barring any lawsuits to be brought against those officials,” he said. “Months into this Administration, The New York Times reported that the National Security Agency had ‘intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits,’ and that the practice was ’significant and systematic.’ Passage of this legislation today continues to make Congress complicit in these violations of our basic constitutional rights.”

The title of his press release pleaded for congress to “repeal” the Patriot Act and “restore Constitutional rights to Americans.”

“As Members of Congress sworn to protect the rights and civil liberties afforded to us by the Constitution, we have a responsibility to exercise our oversight powers fully, and significantly reform the PATRIOT Act, ensuring that the privacy and civil liberties of all Americans are fully protected,” he said. “More than eight years after the passage of the PATRIOT Act, we have failed to do so. AsNational Journal correspondent Shane Harris recently put it, we have witnessed the rise of an ‘American Surveillance State.’ We have come to love our fears more than we love our freedoms.”

The USA Patriot Act was passed by Congress in the weeks proceeding the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Many Democrats criticized its passage as too hasty, with some even claiming they did not have a chance to read the hefty legislation before the vote. At the time, the Republican majority did not question it, falling in line to support the legislation seemingly regardless of what the Bush administration put in it.

“This was not, in my view, the finest hour for the United States Senate,” Senator Russel Feingold (D-WI) said, in an address given to Congress on Oct. 12, 2001. “The debate on a bill that may have the most far reaching consequences on the civil liberties of the American people in a generation was a non-debate. The merits took a back seat to the deal.”

In contrast, many of those same Republicans have criticized President Obama for attempting to pass his package of health care reforms too quickly, though none of them voiced that same concern about the USA Patriot Act.

President Obama is expected to sign the extension before Sunday.

http://rawstory.com/2010/02/modification-debate-democrats-send-patriot-act-extension-obama/

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Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Friday, Feb 26th, 2010

The leader of a Pakistan based terrorist organisation closely affiliated with Al Qaeda has detailed how his group benefited from extensive political and financial support from the CIA in return for continued attacks against the government, the people and the infrastructure of Iran.

Abdolmalek Rigi, the leader of the Pakistan-based Jundullah terrorist organization was captured earlier this week by Iranian security officials in the south of the country.

Rigi was tracked by Iranian intelligence when he boarded a flight from Dubai to Kyrgyzstan on Tuesday.

According to officials, Rigi was using a forged Afghan passport which was issued to him by the U.S. government.

The 31-year-old terror leader issued a statement on Iranian state TV yesterday, during which he alleged that he had made a pact with the U.S. for safe haven and unlimited military aid to pursue terrorist activities against the Iranian government.

“They said they would cooperate with us and will give me military equipment, arms and machine guns. They also promised to give us a base along the border with Afghanistan next to Iran,” Rigi said.

“They [were] prepared to give [us] training and/or any assistance that [we] would require, in terms of telecommunications security and procedures as well as other support, the Americans said they would be willing to provide it at an extensive level,” he added.

Rigi indicated that the relationship with U.S. intelligence continued through the election of Barack Obama and up to the present day.

Iranian officials paraded Rigi before the press and presented a photo they claim showed the terrorist leader entering a U.S. base in Afghanistan one day before his arrest.

The Pentagon has strenuously denied having any links to the Jundullah, describing the revelations as “fabrications” and “propaganda” concocted by Iranian officials.

Iran’s intelligence minister, Heydar Moslehi also alleged that Rigi had met the then Nato secretary-general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, in Afghanistan in 2008, and had visited European countries.

Moslehi said agents had tracked Rigi’s movements for five months, calling his arrest “a great defeat for the US and UK”.

Of course, you will not hear about this story in the controlled U.S. media, so it is left to Russia Today broadcasters, with the help of investigative journalist and author Webster Tarpley to break down the story:

ran has repeatedly claimed that Jundullah, which has carried out scores of bombings against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, killing hundreds of civilians in the process, is backed directly by Pakistan, Britain and Israel, as well as America.

So why should we give any credence to a captured terrorist who has undergone hours of interrogation from Iranian officials?

Because his confession backs up already substantial evidence that the the Jundullah group, in addition to other anti-Iranian terrorist groups, have enjoyed fruitful relationships with western intelligence.

We have consistently reported on the ties, as has award winning journalist Seymour Hersh and other notable publications such as the London Telegraph. Below is a selection of core articles that present substantive evidence of the terrorist groups’ links to the CIA:

Reporter Details Congressionally Approved Covert Funding Of Terrorists In Iran

Western Governments Funding Taliban & Al-Qaeda To Kill U.S. Troops, Destabilize Countries

US Aiding Al Qaeda Affiliated Group In Iran?

Bush sanctions ‘black ops’ against Iran

CIA Protects Al-Qaeda Group From Extradition

U.S. Government Uses Al-Qaeda To Attack Iran

Ex-CIA agent confirms US ties with Jundullah

U.S. Attacks Iran Via CIA-Funded Jundullah Terror Group

Iranian Interior Minister: Western Intelligence Behind Riots And Unrest

Abdolmalek Rigi’s claims echo those of his brother Abdolhamid Rigi, who was arrested by Pakistani security forces last year and extradited to Iran.

We have also previously detailed the fact that the West has a long history of meddling in Iranian affairs and stirring up unrest and division.

The following is a video and detailed transcript of Abdolmalek Rigi’s confession, stated in Farsi, as broadcast on Iran’s Press TV:

“After Obama was elected, the Americans contacted us and they met me in Pakistan.They met us after clashes with my group around March 17 in (the southeastern city of) Zahedan, and he (the US operative) said that Americans had requested a meeting.”

“I said we didn’t have any time for a meeting and if we do help them they should promise to give us aid. They said they would cooperate with us and will give me military equipment, arms and machine guns. They also promised to give us a base along the border with Afghanistan next to Iran.”

“They asked to meet me and we said where should we meet you and he said in Dubai. We sent someone to Dubai and we told a person to ask a place for myself in Afghanistan from the area near the operations and they complied that they would sort out the problem for us and they will find Mr. Rigi a base and guarantee his own security in Afghanistan or in any of the countries adjacent to Iran so that he can carry on his operations.

“They told me that in Kyrgyzstan they have a base called Manas near Bishkek, and that a high-ranking person was coming to meet me and that if such high-ranking people come to the United Arab Emirates, they may be observed by intelligence people but in a place like Bishkek this high-ranking American person could come and we could reach an agreement on making personal contacts. But after the last major operation we took part in, they said that they wanted to meet with us.

“The Americans said Iran was going its own way and they said our problem at the present is Iran not al-Qaeda and not the Taliban, but the main problem is Iran. We don’t have a military plan against Iran. Attacking Iran is very difficult for us (the US). The CIA is very particular about you and is prepared to do anything for you because our government has reached the conclusion that there was nothing Americans could do about Iran and only I could take care of the operations for them.

“One of the CIA officers said that it was too difficult for us to attack Iran militarily, but we plan to give aid and support to all anti-Iran groups that have the capability to wage war and create difficulty for the Iranian (Islamic) system. They reached the conclusion that your organization has the power to create difficulties for the Islamic Republic and they are prepared to give you training and/or any assistance that you would require, in terms of telecommunications security and procedures as well as other support, the Americans said they would be willing to provide it at an extensive level.”

http://www.infowars.com/arrested-terrorist-leader-exposes-extensive-cia-connections/

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Former Federal Reserve Vice Chair, CFR and Trilateral Commission member Alice Rivlin.

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
February 26, 2010

It can’t get more surrealistic. Obama has appointed a former member of the primary organization responsible for socking future generations with crushing debt to a government panel ostensibly designed to address that engineered debt.

Obama created the debt commission last week bysigning an executive order. During the dog and pony show otherwise known as the election, Obama promised not to rule by authoritarian Roman decree.

“President Barack Obama rounded out his appointments to his new deficit commission, naming former Federal Reserve Vice Chair Alice Rivlin and three others to serve on the panel,” reports the Associated Press.

“I am proud that these distinguished individuals have agreed to work to build a bipartisan consensus to put America on the path toward fiscal reform and responsibility,” declared Obama.

Obama also installed Dave Cote, the CEO of the transnational death merchant corporation Honeywell, and Andy Stern, president of Service Employees International Union. SEIU is notorious for dispatching brownshirt thugs to attack patriots at anti-Obama events. Obama earlier appointed Clinton’s former chief of staff, Erskine Bowles, and former district of criminals fixture Alan K. Simpson.

Stern has called senators terrorists for daring to oppose Obama’s Totalitarian Care at gunpoint scheme.

In addition to the working for the Federal Reserve, Rivlin is a member of both the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission.

What an obscene joke. The Federal Reserve is a branch office of the bankster cartel responsible for loaning funny money to the government and creating the national debt. Last year, the Federal Reserve bought 80% of this debt. The corporate media likes to say China and foreigners own the debt but in fact foreign investors as a group bought only 20% of the total – around $300 billion or so. The balance over the past 12 months was substantially purchased by the Federal Reserve.

In order to pay the interest on this astronomical debt owed to the banksters, new loans must continually be taken out, expanding the money supply, inflating prices and robbing your and your children blind. The Federal Reserve was specifically created in order to “scientifically” manipulate this Monopoly money supply and ultimately turn the American people into debt slaves.

In Bankster Bizarro World, any commission supposedly designed to address the debt will naturally be stacked with functionaries and hirelings of the very criminal organizations that have foisted the scam on the blinkered public.

http://www.infowars.com/obama-appoints-federal-reserve-operative-to-debt-panel/

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Robert Rubin pioneered covert banking bailouts.

Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) – Robert Rubin, the former U.S. Treasury secretary who later advised Citigroup Inc. as the bank piled up subprime-mortgage losses, may soon face his first public grilling on the 2008 financial crisis.

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, investigating the worst economic slump since the Great Depression, plans to ask Rubin to testify in April, said two people with knowledge of the commission’s decisions. The panel may summon former Federal Reserve ChairmanAlan Greenspan and former Citigroup Chief Executive Officer Charles O. Princein its review of companies and regulatory lapses that fueled excessive speculation in the real-estate market, said the people, who declined to be identified before the hearings are announced.

Rubin, 71, has been perceived as “bullet-proof” because his Citigroup job was “framed as if he was only there to give advice,” said Charles Geisst, author of “Wall Street: A History” and a finance professor at Manhattan College in Riverdale, New York. “Unless they’ve actually got some stuff where he advised on some surreptitious deal that went bad or his advice was purposely misleading, they’re going to have a very difficult time with him.”

Rubin’s reputation dimmed after the U.S. bailed out New York-based Citigroup with $45 billion and American International Group Inc. had to be propped up because of losses on derivatives. When Rubin was President Bill Clinton’s Treasury secretary, he fought efforts to regulate derivatives.

FCIC Chairman Phil Angelides and Vice Chairman Bill Thomas, in an interview Feb. 25, wouldn’t confirm whether Rubin will be asked to appear. The commission, created by Congress, plans to seek testimony from those who’ve been “major leaders” in government and on Wall Street, Angelides said.

‘Major Participants’

“It is striking the extent to which many major participants in this meltdown have not been called upon to answer questions either in public or private,” Angelides said.

Rubin, through an aide, declined to comment. Greenspan, 83, through his assistant, said he would be pleased to testify if asked. Prince, 60, declined to comment through a spokeswoman.

The request for Rubin and Prince to testify may show the FCIC is focused on Citigroup, which has lost $23.9 billion since 2008. Citigroup investors including Smith Asset Management’s William Smith criticize Rubin for collecting more than $110 million in pay over a decade while failing to steer management away from decisions that triggered losses.

Rubin, chairman of Citigroup’s executive committee from 1999 until 2008, became the bank’s chairman for five weeks after Prince resigned in November 2007. Rubin retired as senior counselor to the bank in January 2009.

Rubin, Obama

Barack Obama named Rubin to be an economic adviser during the 2008 presidential campaign, and two Treasury protégés, Lawrence Summers andTimothy Geithner, are top officials in the White House. Summers, 55, is chief economic adviser and Geithner, 48, is Treasury secretary.

When Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein, JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon, Bank of America Corp. CEO Brian Moynihan and former Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack testified to the panel last month, no one from Citigroup appeared.

Former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt said the hearing was a “parade of soundbites” that failed to shed light on why companies such as Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. failed, and U.S. taxpayers had to spend $700 billion rescuing the financial industry.

Thomas and Angelides said the first hearing was an introduction before the staff completed extensive probing and investigation. That will change as the panel examines additional companies and individuals, the two men said.

‘Hard Slog’

“We had our initial hearing and now we are in the hard slog of the research and investigation,” Angelides said. “The hearings will be stops along the investigatory trail.”

In the late 1990s, Rubin as Treasury chief and Greenspan as Fed chairman successfully blocked attempts by Brooksley Born, head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, to study regulating over-the-counter derivatives. Born is an inquiry commissioner.

Congress passed a law in 2000 keeping over-the-counter derivatives unregulated. That allowed for rapid growth in products such as credit-default swaps, contributing to the $1.7 trillion in losses banks have suffered since 2007.

Greenspan in October 2008 told House lawmakers that the financial crisis revealed a “flaw” in his free-market ideology. Greenspan, who stepped down as Fed chairman in 2006, said he was “partially” wrong for opposing oversight of derivatives.

Prince testified to Congress in March 2008, taking responsibility for Citigroup’s reliance on “inadequate” models that proved “wrong” in assessing the risk of mortgage securities.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=awBxY8l.FeWE&pos=2

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SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ – Richard Gage, AIA, architect and founder of the non-profit Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Inc. (AE911Truth), will announce a decisive milestone today at a press conference in San Francisco, as more than 1,000 worldwide architects and engineers now support the call for a new investigation into the destruction of the Twin Towers and Building 7 at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. After careful examination of the official explanation, along with the forensic data omitted from official reports, these professionals have concluded that a new independent investigation into these mysterious collapses is needed.

Mr. Gage will deliver the news around this major development, accompanied by signers of the Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth petition. The press conference will be held concurrently in 38 cities in 6 countries.http://www.ae911truth.org/info/160

These prominent architectural and engineering professionals will discuss the organization’s findings and concerns. A brief presentation of the explosive evidence they have compiled will be followed by Q & A. The presentation is an important update of “9/11: Blueprint for Truth – The Architecture of Destruction,” the DVD produced by the organization, and available on their website AE911Truth.org, which analyzes  thescientific forensic evidence concluding that the three skyscrapers in New York City were demolished with explosives on 9/11.  The petition will be delivered today to every congressional representative by AE911Truth petition signers throughout the country.  Government officials will be notified that “Misprision of Treason”, US Code 18 (Sec. 2382), is a serious federal offense which requires those with evidence of treason to act.

Gage and his group base their conclusions on forensic evidence. Gage states, “The official FEMA and NIST reports provide insufficient, contradictory, and fraudulent accounts of the circumstances of the towers’ destruction.  We are therefore calling for a grand jury investigation of NIST officials.  Gage points out the destruction of the third high-rise, World Trade Center 7, a 47-story skyscraper which was not hit by an aircraft, yet came down in pure free-fall acceleration for more than 100 feet, a significant fact that NIST has been forced to admit, due to research conducted by AE911Truth petition signers. Other disturbing facts emerging from the forensic evidence include:

• Complete destruction of both Twin Towers in just 10 to 14 seconds at near free-fall acceleration
• Over 100 first-responder reports of explosions and flashes at onset of destruction
• Multi-ton steel sections ejected laterally 600 ft at 60 mph
• Mid-air pulverization of 90,000 tons of concrete & metal decking
• 1200-foot-dia. debris field: no “pancaked” floors seen in the debris pile
• Several tons of molten metal found in debris.
• Evidence of advanced explosive nano-thermitic composite material found in the WTC dust by aninternational team of scientists

AE911Truth’s conclusions are shared by thousands of scientists; senior-level military, intelligence and government officials; pilots and aviation professionals; firefighters; scholars and university professors; and 9/11 survivors and their family members.  The implications are enormous and may have profound impact on the forthcoming Khalid Sheikh Mohammed trial.

The 9/11 Truth Movement, which Time magazine in 2006 called “a mainstream political reality,” continues to gain momentum. As AE911Truth’s own influence grows, Gage has embarked on well over 130 speaking events, covering 20 states and 13 countries, including Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. He has been interviewed by media around the world – including the BBC, CBC, NatGeo, and Fox TV.

SOURCE Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Inc.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20100219/pl_usnw/DC57612_1

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“Little Timmy. My little Uber-Yuppy, hanging in my town. I should of went to see my little mousy friend. Brought em’ some cheese or some shit. So this whole airplane incident worked out real well for them & the I.R.S. huh? What a fucking joke.”

-F.F.

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This week Max Keiser and co-host Stacy Herbert report on the scandals of George Soros and the IMF shaking out the gold market; US bank lending falling at the fastest rate in recorded history; and the trickle up unemployment pyramid. Keiser also speaks to The Market Ticker’s Karl Denninger about CDOs, synthetic CDOs and hiding Greek debt.

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Jennifer Couzin-Frankel

Like virtually every state, Texas routinely screens almost all newborns for rare diseases, collecting a few drops of blood at birth. In recent years many states, Texas included, havestored the samples and offered them up for research, mainly in pediatrics. Because the samples are anonymous (though they may come with some demographic information, depending on the study), researchers have argued that they don’t need to seek informed consent to use them.

That hasn’t gone over well recently; in March of last year, a civil rights group sued the Texas screening program. In December, the state settled the case and agreed to destroy all newborn blood spots collected before May 2009, when legislation passed allowing for sample storage.

That’s where the story gets interesting. The Texas Tribune describes a drawn-out effort to review records of the newborn blood spots. After a couple requests, the Texas Department of State Health Services released a batch of documents, which included a single e-mail mentioning the mtDNA project at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, D.C. “When the Tribune pressed health officials about the missing research files, they produced them, saying it was an oversight, and that the documents had been overlooked in their initial search,” writes The Tribune’s Emily Ramshaw.

There’s growing concern among researchers that public wariness about the newborn screening program will create a backlash—with parents declining to screen their kids (who may end up much sicker because their disease wasn’t caught early), and with the spots no longer made available for valuable pediatrics research, such as tracing the origins of childhood leukemia. This new revelation is likely to fan those flame—even if the samples in question are being destroyed.

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Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Austin suicide pilot Joe Stack kept some very interesting company as far as the client list for his software programming company is concerned, including a defense contractor with NSA and Homeland Security connections that ironically dealt with air defense systems.

The Georgetown Airport hanger in which Stack’s ill-fated Piper Cherokee was kept was jointly leased by Stack and a man called John Podolak, records show.

The Of Goats and Men blog highlights the fact that Podolak was appointed in 2004 to manage L-3 Avisys’ Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Counter-MANPADS (Man-Portable Air Defense Systems) initiative.

L-3 Avisys is a defense contractor with its main headquarters based in Austin Texas which sells products and works closely with the Department of Defense and unnamed “U.S. Government intelligence agencies”.

Podolak was hired to “oversee a strong team of more than 10 IRCM defense suppliers who will perform research studies and lead the transition of the team’s proposed CAPS (Commercial Airliner Protection System) technology to the airline industry.”

L-3 was also a key client for Stack’s software programming business. Stack helped develop a GPS-based Fight Management System for IEC, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of L-3.

L-3 was also investigated by the SEC for its role in the suspicious number of “put options” on United and American Airlines, speculation that a company’s stock will fall, in the days before 9/11.

Indeed, former NSA official Wayne Madsen wrote in September 2008 that, “A long-time L-3 Communications consultant for the National Security Agency (NSA) was, according to our source, one of the very few recipients of the live video stream that caught the first plane hitting the North Tower.”

“Other clients on the list such as DMC Stratex Networks and Sorrento Electronics also are defense contractors and probably a closer examination of these and other corporations on Stack’s client list will reveal more interesting details,” notes the blog.

The blog also highlights transponder flight tracking records of Stack’s plane which show that its last journey took place on August 6, 2009, and not on February 18 last week when the aircraft was slammed into the Echelon building.

One poster on the Prison Planet forum speculates, “This plane may still be in a hanger at GTU.”

Could Stack’s lightweight Piper Cherokee really have caused such drastic damage to the facade of the Echelon building when compared with other small planes that have crashed into buildings like that ofNew York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle?

The huge fireball reported by eyewitnesses could well have been as a result of extra fuel canisters Stack had loaded onto the plane to inflict maximum damage, but this has yet to be confirmed by authorities.

Intimate ties with defense contractors, not just through his software company, but on a personal level with L-3’s John Podolak will only serve to deepen the intrigue surrounding the motivation behind Stack’s attack on the IRS building, with scant details having emerged since the tragic incident last week.

Another startling contradiction comes in the form of Stack’s last words, which were reported by the media and apparently confirmed by audio from air traffic control tapes to be, “Thanks for your help, have a good day.”

However, audio taken from radio scanners who also recorded Stack’s last words is slightly different from that being forwarded as the official version. The second version of the audio, Stack’s final words are, “I’m definitely checking out, have a good day.”

A comparison of the two clips can be heard at this link.

While one eyewitness described seeing no pilot in the cockpit, another told WeAreAustin.com, “The pilot looked like he was in a comatose state; leaning back and going on in.”

Another interesting discrepancy to have emerged is the fact that Stack’s daughter told the Associated Press that Stack’s suicide note did not sound like it was written by him.

“It’s not him. The letter itself sounds like it’s coming from a different person. It didn’t sound like it came from him,” Samantha Dawn Bell told the AP.

http://www.infowars.com/joe-stacks-intriguing-connections-with-defense-contractors-intelligence-agencies/

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“Do these people ever look into stuff before making completely outrageous assumptions? Yeah, KRS-1 goes on the Alex Jones show because he loves cavorting with skin-heads. It’s just good ol’ ignorance when it comes to some people trying to understand the whole Libertarian, Ron Paul, People Who Have A Grasp On Reality, People Who Are Not Fevered With Guilt,  (whatever the fuck you want to call it)… movement. I’m exhausted now.”

-F.F.

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Tuesday, February 23, 2010

n another lame effort to demonize anyone concerned about the move towards global government as it is openly announced as some kind of domestic terrorist, Financial Times chief foreign affairs correspondent Gideon Rachman compares Austin radio show host Alex Jones with Oklahoma City bomber and mass murderer of 168 people, Timothy McVeigh.

From the outset, Rachman makes it clear that he’s attempting to replicate the interest shown in his previous brush with “conspiracy theorists,” which occurred back in December 2008 when Rachmanpenned a diatribe promoting the move towards an anti-democratic global government, but then in asubsequent piece feigned shock when he was challenged on his advocacy of such an insidious concept.

Writing propagandistic drivel aimed at toffs sipping chilled Sancerre in their Chelsea swank pads for the Bilderberg-owned Financial Times obviously has its duller moments, because Rachman is back for a second bite at the cherry.

“The common thread, I think, is that my world government piece was picked up by the loony right in America as grist for their conspiracy theory that there is a secret plot to create a world government and to deprive Americans of their freedom,” writes Rachman, before noting that Alex Jones repeatedly tried to interview him for his radio broadcast. Rachman can’t even get the name of the show right – calling it “Prison Planet,” which of course is a website and not a radio broadcast.

Rachman’s characterization of “a secret plot to create a world government and to deprive Americans of their freedom” as a belief of the “loony right in America” must mean that Rachman too is a member of that “loony” brigade, because his own article concedes that “everything is in place” for a world government to formally come into being. Not only that, Rachman admits that such a system would only work if it was “anti-democratic” in nature.

So we have the outlandish spectacle of Rachman writing of the near inevitability of an anti-democratic global government coming into existence, but then denouncing those who think that an anti-democratic global government will come into existence as mentally ill.

No, you haven’t just entered the twilight zone, this is the world of Orwellian newspeak, where all logic has been demolished and replaced with the absurd notion that the move towards global government only exists if you say it’s a good thing. If you have concerns about an anti-democratic force crushing sovereignty and imposing centralized dictatorial power, then you’re definitely psychotic and also probably a terrorist.

Rachman goes on to equate Alex Jones with domestic terrorist, Oklahoma City bomber and federal government stooge Timothy McVeigh, in one of the laziest guilt-by-association slapdash smears we’ve witnessed for a long time.

“Like the Oklahoma bomber, Timothy McVeigh, Jones was radicalised by the FBI’s bloody assault on the Branch Davidian religious sect in Waco, Texas in 1993. In fact it seems to me that there is a thin, but direct line of anti-government paranoia that leads you from Jones to Beck to the Tea Party movement that is now such a powerful force in US polities. Or does that sound like a conspiracy theory?” writes Rachman.

Apparently, just writing the words “like the…” and then inserting the name of a mass murderer instantly proves that the target of your smear is evil incarnate.

The use of the word “radicalised” creates the sense that Jones is an extremist hell bent on exacting bloody revenge in the same manner as McVeigh, when in reality “pissed off” would be more appropriate. Anyone who wasn’t pissed off when the feds burned 76 people, including more than 20 children, to death, really would have to subscribe to a “radical” belief system, wherein state assassination is no big deal.

We’ll leave the final word on Rachman’s smear to one of the respondents to his article, nearly all of whom savage the FInancial Times writer for his sophomoric and simplistic treatment of deadly serious issues.

As a worker in finance for 15 years working at top investment banks in London, NY and Asia. A Military officer before that. I have to say that Alex Jones is correct only 95% of the time. The 5% he gets wrong turns out to manifest itself far beyond what he has predicted. Nobody is perfect.

He and his regular guests predicated the global financial crisis in Sept 2008 a full month before it happened citing the deliberate controlled demolition of the economy. Very useful information in the world of finance.

Now, my rational accounting university educated head would say that he merely a crank and a fear monger that got it correct. But, being an Analyst (taking facts and making judgement on the facts alone) it took a long time to to see, and then try to deny the truth that thus guy speaks on a budget of nothing. Alex Jones predicted September the 11th months in advance of it happening. The imminent sovereign debt default of the so-called PIIGS and the death of the dollar.

This track record can not be ignored in the world of finance. The imminent sovereign debt collapse was planned in order to bring about changes towards a one world government. We are seeing it now with central bankers meeting in secret in Australia.

On the other hand, Glenn Beck is a diversionary dressmakers’ dummy upon which the ersatz message of the right wing media is scripted out in an increasingly palpable counterfeit manner. One week he’s for something, the next he’s against it. It’s a mind numbingly confusing ploy that only serves to nullify the important topic under discussion.

Glenn beck still thinks that people believe the left-right paradigm of politics, whereas Jones says this is not so. It’s up and down, black and white, yin and yang, good and bad – in everyone and everything.

The problems we face today are founded upon the fact that the corrupt dark side of humanity have taken control of our institutions.

Your assumption of “anti government stemming from Jones to Beck to the Tea Party movement” is incorrect. The tea party was started by the 9/11 truth movement and Congressman Ron Paul was the acclaimed leader until it was hijacked by Glenn Beck and the Neo Conservatives but there is a revolt against Beck and he has, according to recent radio ratings has lost 12% of listeners in the last week alone, with advertising revenue decreasing by the day.

Maybe you should watch Alex jone’s documentaries. (they are free on youtube and google) They are depressingly chilling because he tells the story in the elites’ own words and actions. The same elites that are in control of our very own institutions.

Even more chillingly, no one has actually refuted his claims other than usual bellows from commentators of “He’s just a Conspiracy Theorist”. But in reality he’s merely a researcher and filmmaker.

As for the tea party movement, there is no centralised leadership that can be coaxed and manipulated into the political framework of DC. And this worries the politico’s with the rise of personalities such as Debra Medina in Texas running for Governor. This worries the Neo Conservatives and they have used Beck to dishevel Medina by saying she was a 9/11 truther – they have now realised that they are promoting her cause when they say this because over 70% of the population don’t believe the official government account of 9/11.

The Tea party movement is a peaceful non-conformist rebellion against a corrupt government and banking system (Jon Talbots’ words – Ex- treasury sec, US) and while I may not agree with everything they have to say, I will strive in every respect to protect their right to say what they want – maybe you should too instead of creating your own construct of the brave new world in order to condition opinion by way of linking Jones to terrorists and tea party members to Glenn Beck with the common purpose of creating anarchy when the true intention is to just remove the corrupt segments of society peacefully and economically.

I’d then certainly consider subscribing and pay for the truth on FT.com instead of being forced to go to 95% correct conspiracy theorist, Alex Jone’s prisonplanet.com for my daily dosage of intelligence that the mainstream news fails to deliver.

http://www.infowars.com/financial-times-writer-compares-alex-jones-with-okc-bomber-timothy-mcveigh/

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“Here’s a hint… it wasn’t for Helmut-Head.”

-Fred Face 2/22/09

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Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, February 22, 2010

A new advisory being sent by America’s third largest bank to its account holders has stoked fears that major financial institutions could be preparing for old fashioned bank runs if the economy takes a turn for the worse.

Originally reported by John Carney over at the Business Insider website, Citigroup is sending the following information to customers along with their bank statements.

“Effective April 1, 2010, we reserve the right to require (7) days advance notice before permitting a withdrawal from all checking accounts. While we do not currently exercise this right and have not exercised it in the past, we are required by law to notify you of this change.”

An almost identical advisory to the one being sent out can be read on page 22 of Citbank’s Client Manual effective January 1, 2010, which can be read here from Citibank’s own website.

“We reserve the right to require seven (7) days advance notice before permitting a withdrawal from all checking, savings and money market accounts. We currently do not exercise this right and have not exercised it in the past,” states the manual.

According to the Future of Capitalism blog, Citigroup originally claimed that the warning was only sent nationwide as a result of a mistake, but that the measures do apply to account holders in Texas.

However, in a statement, Citigroup confirmed that they had reserved the right to impose the new 7 day rule on all account holders nationwide, but claimed they had no plans to enforce it. The bank stated that they had been forced to enact the new policy as a result of federal regulations.

“When Citibank moved to unlimited FDIC coverage in 2009, we had to reclassify many checking accounts to allow for immediate withdrawals in order to ensure all customers qualified for the additional coverage. When we moved back to standard FDIC coverage with most major banks in 2010, Citibank decided to reclassify those accounts back to make them eligible again for promotional incentives. To do so, Federal Reserve Reg D requires these accounts, called NOW accounts, to reserve the right to require a 7-day notice of withdrawal. We recently communicated this technical requirement to our customers. However, we have never exercised this right and have no plans to do so in the future,” reads a statement released by the bank.

Over the last 18 months, numerous rumors of bank runs, “bank holidays,”  and limitations on access to cash at ATM’s have been floating around. Citigroup’s new policy to restrict withdrawals won’t do anything to calm such fears.

As we reported back in 2008, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which guarantees individual accounts up to $100,000, only has about $50 billion to “insure” about $1 trillion in assets across the nation’s financial institutions.

This revelation prompted fears that an accelerating amount of bank closures could absorb FDIC funds and leave holders of money market and traditional savings accounts exposed.

———————————————————

Citigroup Warns Customers It May Refuse To Allow Withdrawals

John Carney

Business Insider

Sunday, February 21, 2010

The image of banks locking their doors to keep customers from making withdrawals during a bank run is what immediately came to mind when we heard that Citigroup was telling customers it has the right to prevent any withdrawals from checking accounts for seven days.

More here.

Below are a number of other news sources reporting on this story and the potential for bank runs.

Citi Warns of Withdrawal Gate

Foreign Embassies Urged to Stockpile Local Currencies

Government Trying To Prevent Bank Run After IndyMac Collapse

What’s a Bank Run?

http://www.infowars.com/update-citigroup-says-feds-ordered-7-day-restriction-on-bank-withdrawals/

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By EVGENY MOROZOV

A storm of protest hit Google last week over Buzz, its new social networking service, because of user concerns about the inadvertent exposure of their data. Internet users in Iran, however, were spared such trouble. It’s not because Google took extra care in protecting their identities—they didn’t—but because the Iranian authorities decided to ban Gmail, Google’s popular email service, and replace it with a national email system that would be run by the government.

Such paradoxes abound in the Islamic Republic’s complex relationship with the Internet. As the Iranian police were cracking down on anti-government protesters by posting their photos online and soliciting tips from the public about their identities, a technology company linked to the government was launching the first online supermarket in the country. Only a few days later, Iran’s state-controlled telecommunications company confirmed it had struck an important deal with its peers in Azerbaijan and Russia, boosting the country’s communications capacity and lessening its dependence on Internet cables that pass through the United Arab Emirates and Turkey.

Most of these paradoxes are lost on Western observers of the Internet and its role in the politics of Iran and other authoritarian states. Since the publication of John Perry Barlow’s “Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” in 1996, they have been led to believe that cyberspace is conducive to democracy and liberty, and no government would be able to crush that libertarian spirit (why, then, Mr. Barlow felt the need to write such a declaration remains unknown to this day). The belief that free and unfettered access to information, combined with new tools of mobilization afforded by blogs and social networks, leads to the opening up of authoritarian societies and their eventual democratization now forms one of the pillars of “techno-utopianism.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton vows to make Internet freedom one of the cornerstones of American foreign policy, and one senator after another issues calls to “tear down this cyber wall” and allocate more funding to groups that promote Internet freedom and fight online censorship without giving much thought to the footnotes. The spirit of techno-utopianism in Washington rides so high it often seems that the Freedom Agenda has been reborn as the Twitter Agenda—perhaps only with more utopianism about both democratization and the Internet’s role in it. Even such a seasoned observer of foreign affairs as Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana could not resist the urge to join the church of Twitter-worship, penning a Foreign Policy op-ed that urged American diplomats to engage with social media. What remains overlooked by Sen. Lugar and others is that authoritarian governments may survive the age of information abundance relatively unscathed—and in fact, they’re already using the Internet to fight the challenges posed by modernity.

Is this growing fascination with social media a mere sign of our desperation with other, more conventional instruments of diplomatic leverage? Perhaps so. While sanctions and negotiations—the well-tested ways of wielding American power—do not get us very far with China and Iran, social media as a tool of foreign policy has the unique advantage of being untested. It never failed—so it must be working.

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“There’s a fevered ego if I ever saw one (or two).”

-F.F.

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, February 22, 2010

Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano cited examples of Muslim extremists in her warning Sunday that domestic terrorists were now as much a focus as international terrorism, but actual training manuals being used by state and federal authorities across America reveal that the primary target of the anti-terror apparatus hits a lot closer to home.

“Americans who turn to terrorism and plot against the U.S. are now as big a concern as international terrorists, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Sunday,” reports the Associated Press.

“In the last year, Napolitano said, she’s witnessed a movement from international extremism to domestic extremism – cases in which Americans radicalized and decided to plot attacks against the country.”

However, Napolitano’s comments were clearly crafted to appeal to some on the right who claim that the Obama administration, despite its clear intensification of Bush’s “war on terror” with more raids into Pakistan and new targets in Yemen, has been “soft” on terror, with the DHS Secretary listing examples of Muslim Americans who have allegedly planned terror attacks (but not without aggressive prompting by FBI informants in almost every case).

In reality, as leaked state and federal documents illustrate, the primary focus of the war on terror is aimed at American citizens who exercise or merely show an interest in their own constitutional rights.

As President Obama’s would-be TSA head and former FBi agent Erroll Southers stated last month, white Christian “anti-government” types are now the primary target of suspicion for authorities.

In a video interview posted to You Tube, Southers outlined how the government and the TSA has to “pay attention” not to Muslim terrorists but to “anti-government, anti-abortion, survivalist types” who are “christian identity oriented.”

As we have exhaustively documented for years, even if there were cells of Muslim terrorists planning to bomb airliners, the federal government is far more concerned with what politically active conservative and libertarian Americans are up to.

This was illustrated again earlier this month with a story concerning South Carolina’s “Subversive Activities Registration Act,” a law which mandates that “Every member of a subversive organization, or an organization subject to foreign control, every foreign agent and every person who advocates, teaches, advises or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States … shall register with the Secretary of State.”

Under the sweeping terms of the law, members of tax protest organizations, the Tea Party movement and the States’ Rights movement based in South Carolina are all domestic terrorists if they fail to register their dissent with the authorities. If such groups don’t obtain what amounts to a license from the government to engage in free speech, their members face a $25,000 fine and 10 years in prison.

Leaked state and federal documents produced since the early nineties have routinely labeled politically active Americans, or merely those cognizant of their constitutional rights, as the main domestic extremist threat.

An infamous leaked report distributed by the Missouri Information Analysis Center last year listed Ron Paul supporters, libertarians, people who display bumper stickers, people who own gold, or even people who fly a U.S. flag and equated them with radical race hate groups and terrorists.

The 2009 Virginia Terrorism Threat Assessment, produced by the Virginia Fusion Center, smeared anyone who is “anti-government,” “anti-abortion,” as potential terrorists, equated people who enjoy rifle shooting practice and hunting with terrorists, and demonized the use of the Internet and websites like You Tube, Fark and Slashdot as terrorist tools. The use of “e-protests” is also talked about in the context of terrorism.

The document also discusses “special interest groups” who “incorporate a political message” in its section about domestic terrorists, which could be defined as any mildly political organization whatsoever.

These are just two of a plethora of similar police and federal government reports stretching back well over a decade that identify politically active Americans as domestic terrorists and a target of domestic authorities.

The American people are clearly being prepared for more “home grown” false flag terror attacks on soft targets in order to smooth the rollout of stifling airport-style security measures onto the streets. With passengers at bus terminals already being subjected to random pat downs, baggage and sniffer dog searches, shopping malls and other public buildings are next.

The ultimate goal is to have naked body scanners attached to lamp posts that scan your naked body as you innocently walk down the street. The only way to sell this to the public will be for them to witness repeated soft target attacks similar to those seen in Israel over the past decade.

http://www.infowars.com/americans-who-know-their-rights-are-the-real-target-of-napolitanos-domestic-terror-warning/

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By Michael Isikoff

February 21, 2010 “Newsweek” — Feb 19, 2010 – The chief author of the Bush administration’s “torture memo” told Justice Department investigators that the president’s war-making authority was so broad that he had the constitutional power to order a village to be “massacred,” according to a report released Friday night by the Office of Professional Responsibility.

The views of former Justice lawyer John Yoo were deemed to be so extreme and out of step with legal precedents that they prompted the Justice Department’s internal watchdog office to conclude last year that he committed “intentional professional misconduct” when he advised the CIA it could proceed with waterboarding and other aggressive interrogation techniques against Al Qaeda suspects.

The report by OPR concludes that Yoo, now a Berkeley law professor, and his boss at the time, Jay Bybee, now a federal judge, should be referred to their state bar associations for possible disciplinary proceedings. But, as first reported by NEWSWEEK, another senior department lawyer, David Margolis, reviewed the report and last month overruled its findings on the grounds that there was no clear and “unambiguous” standard by which OPR was judging the lawyers. Instead, Margolis, who was the final decision-maker in the inquiry, found that they were guilty of only “poor judgment.”

The report, more than four years in the making, is filled with new details into how a small group of lawyers at the Justice Department, the CIA, and the White House crafted the legal arguments that gave the green light to some of the most controversial tactics in the Bush administration’s war on terror. They also describe how Bush administration officials were so worried about the prospect that CIA officers might be criminally prosecuted for torture that one senior official—Attorney General John Ashcroft—even suggested that President Bush issue “advance pardons” for those engaging in waterboarding, a proposal that he was quickly told was not possible.

At the core of the legal arguments were the views of Yoo, strongly backed by David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney’s legal counsel, that the president’s wartime powers were essentially unlimited and included the authority to override laws passed by Congress, such as a statute banning the use of torture. Pressed on his views in an interview with OPR investigators, Yoo was asked:

“What about ordering a village of resistants to be massacred? … Is that a power that the president could legally—”

“Yeah,” Yoo replied, according to a partial transcript included in the report. “Although, let me say this: So, certainly, that would fall within the commander-in-chief’s power over tactical decisions.”

“To order a village of civilians to be [exterminated]?” the OPR investigator asked again.

“Sure,” said Yoo.

Yoo is depicted as the driving force behind an Aug. 1, 2002, Justice Department memo that narrowly defined torture and then added sections concluding that, in the end, it essentially didn’t matter what the fine print of the congressionally passed law said: The president’s authority superseded the law and CIA officers who might later be accused of torture could also argue that were acting in “self defense” in order to save American lives.

The original torture memo was prompted by concerns by John Rizzo, the CIA’s general counsel, that the agency’s officers might be criminally prosecuted if they proceeded with waterboarding and other rough tactics in their interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, an allegedly high-level Al Qaeda-linked operative who had been captured in Pakistan and in the spring of 2002 was transferred to a CIA “black site” prison in Thailand. Rizzo wanted the Justice Department to provide a blanket letter declining criminal prosecution, essentially providing immunity for any action engaged in by CIA officers, a request that Michael Chertoff, then chief of the Justice Department’s criminal division, refused to provide. It was at that point that Yoo began crafting his opinion, the contents of which he actively reviewed with senior officials at the White House. “Let’s plan on going over [to the White House] at 3:30 to see some other folks about the bad things opinion,” he wrote in a July 12, 2002, e-mail quoted in the OPR report.

The report describes two meetings at the White House with then-chief counsel Alberto Gonzales and “possibly Addington.” (Addington refused to talk to the OPR investigators but testified before Congress that he did in fact have at least one meeting with Yoo in the summer of 2002 to discuss the contents of the torture opinion.) After the second meeting, on July 16, 2002, Yoo began writing new sections of his memo that included his controversial views on the president’s powers as commander in chief. When one of his associates, Patrick Philbin, questioned the inclusion of that section and suggested it be removed, Yoo replied, “They want it in there,” according to an account given by Philbin to OPR investigators. Philbin said he didn’t know who the “they” was but assumed it was whoever it was that requested the opinion (technically, that was the CIA, although, as the report makes clear, the White House was also pressing for it).

Yoo provided extensive comments to OPR defending his views of the president’s war-making authority and disputing OPR’s take that he slanted them to accommodate the White House. He did not immediately respond to NEWSWEEK’S request for comment Friday night.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24820.htm

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A UN nuclear watchdog report suggests Iran could be developing a nuclear bomb, apparently confirming long-held suspicions in the West. But Tehran denies the claims, again insisting that its atomic intentions are peaceful.

Michel Chossudovsky, who’s from an independent Canadian policy research group, believes that what Iran says hardly matters, because the U.S. is planning for war.

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By Stephen C. Webster

Remember the big conservative conference Fox News has been hyping over the past 10 days?

The Conservative Political Action Conference’s presidential straw poll, a key marker of the mood among conservative voters, apparently didn’t mean anything to the network. And if it did mean something, the only real result is bragging rights for the individual candidates who were so well exposed. And hey, even Dick Cheney showed up.

Or, at least that’s how Fox News characterized the poll, after it was reported that Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) had won it by a wide margin.

CPAC participants voted for Paul as their favored candidate by some 31 percent, giving him the largest margin of victory in recent years. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who has won the vote over the last three years, was the runner up with 22 percent. Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was third with seven percent.

Over 10,000 people attended CPAC this year.

“It is way early, it is unscientific,” said a Fox News host, even as the split-screen showed Glenn Beck on stage at the conference. “Perhaps it offers nothing more than bragging rights, uh, through the course of this year. But, it is quite a, uh, enthusiastic crowd. What a difference a year makes.”

What a difference a year makes, indeed. Paul himself said something quite similar a day prior, when he spoke before the largest, loudest audience of any other presenter.

He asked if the crowd remembered when he was the guy “off in the corner” predicting doom, and none in the media paid him any serious mind.

“All the sudden, the crash that I had predicting all along: it came,” Paul said. “And now, Fox News TV has had me on about 60 times since the campaign was over.”

On its Web site, Fox News said that the vote is “not necessarily a good forecaster” of conservatives’ leanings nation wide.

Jake Gibson, micro-blogging for Fox News’s Live Shots, wrote that Paul’s win was “surprising” and caused very audible booing throughout the crowd. Meanwhile, Live Shots writer Kelley Beaucar Vlahos characterized the poll as an annual competition between the Republicans’ “bright lights.”

Paul is now, apparently, counted among them. Or is he?

In 2009, CPAC was arguably the biggest event in conservative politics all year, featuring right-wing all-stars like Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter and many more. In 2008, pollsters were shocked when Romney beat Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) by just one percent of the vote, even after announcing the suspension of his presidential campaign.

That year, Paul tied for third with former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee with 12 percent of the vote. In the same poll for 2009, Ron Paul again came in third place, this time with 13 percent of the vote. He was bested by Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, at 14 percent, and Mitt Romney, with 20.

“I believe we are on the verge of something very significant,” Paul told CPAC in 2010.

Watch his full speech here.

http://rawstory.com/2010/02/fox-news-runs-damage-control-ron-paul-wins-cpac-presidential-straw-poll/

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David Adam

Scientists have been forced to withdraw a study on projected sea level rise due to global warming after finding mistakes that undermined the findings.

The study, published in 2009 in Nature Geoscience, one of the top journals in its field, confirmed the conclusions of the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It used data over the last 22,000 years to predict that sea level would rise by between 7cm and 82cm by the end of the century.

At the time, Mark Siddall, from the Earth Sciences Department at the University of Bristol, said the study “strengthens the confidence with which one may interpret the IPCC results“. The IPCC said that sea level would probably rise by 18cm-59cm by 2100, though stressed this was based on incomplete information about ice sheet melting and that the true rise could be higher.

Many scientists criticised the IPCC approach as too conservative, and several papers since have suggested that sea level could rise more. Martin Vermeer of the Helsinki University of Technology, Finland and Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany published a study in December that projected a rise of 0.75m to 1.9m by 2100.

Siddall said that he did not know whether the retracted paper’s estimate of sea level rise was an overestimate or an underestimate.

Announcing the formal retraction of the paper from the journal, Siddall said: “It’s one of those things that happens. People make mistakes and mistakes happen in science.” He said there were two separate technical mistakes in the paper, which were pointed out by other scientists after it was published. A formal retraction was required, rather than a correction, because the errors undermined the study’s conclusion.

“Retraction is a regular part of the publication process,” he said. “Science is a complicated game and there are set procedures in place that act as checks and balances.”

Nature Publishing Group, which publishes Nature Geoscience, said this was the first paper retracted from the journal since it was launched in 2007.

The paper – entitled “Constraints on future sea-level rise from past sea-level change” – used fossil coral data and temperature records derived from ice-core measurements to reconstruct how sea level has fluctuated with temperature since the peak of the last ice age, and to project how it would rise with warming over the next few decades.

In a statement the authors of the paper said: “Since publication of our paper we have become aware of two mistakes which impact the detailed estimation of future sea level rise. This means that we can no longer draw firm conclusions regarding 21st century sea level rise from this study without further work.

“One mistake was a miscalculation; the other was not to allow fully for temperature change over the past 2,000 years. Because of these issues we have retracted the paper and will now invest in the further work needed to correct these mistakes.”

In the Nature Geoscience retraction, in which Siddall and his colleagues explain their errors, Vermeer and Rahmstorf are thanked for “bringing these issues to our attention”.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/21/sea-level-geoscience-retract-siddall

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“Oh, how nice of them.”

-F.F.

• By David Kravets

A suburban Philadelphia school district is deactivating a webcam, theft-tracking program secretly lodged on 2,300 student laptops following allegations the device was used by administrators to spy on a boy at home.

“I think given the concerns of parents and community members, I think we have a responsibility to at least take a pause and review the policy,” Lower Merion School District spokesman Doug Young said in a telephone interview Thursday evening.

The move came a day after the 6,900-pupil district, which provides students from its two high schools free Macbooks, was sued in federal court on allegations it was undertaking a dragnet surveillance program targeting its students — an allegation the district denied. Young said the computer-tracking program was activated a “handful” of times solely to track a missing laptop.

The suit was based on a student’s claim, acknowledged by the district, that the webcam was used by school officials to chronicle “improper behavior” based on a photo the computer secretly took of the boy at home. (.pdf) in November.

The assistant principal at Harriton High informed the student “that the school district was of the belief that minor plaintiff was engaged in improper behavior in his home, and cited as evidence a photograph from the webcam embedded in minor plaintiff’s personal laptop issued by the school district,” according to the lawsuit.

Young declined to directly say whether the program was activated in this instance to locate a missing laptop. He said the district only activates it when there is a reported missing laptop, and urged Threat Level to draw its own “inferences.”

“The only situation where the feature would have been activated is in the case of a stolen, missing or lost laptop,” Young said. “There’s never been any scenario used for any purpose other than that.”

Lawyers for the student did not return phone calls and e-mails for comment. The Associated Press reported late Friday the FBI was probing the allegations.

The lawsuit seeks class-action status to represent all the district’s 2,300 high school students. “Unbeknownst to plaintiffs and members of the class, and without their authorization, defendants have been spying on the activities of plaintiffs and class members by defendants’ indiscriminate use of and ability to remotely activate the webcams incorporated into each laptop issued to students by the school district,” according to the complaint.

When the district began issuing laptops to all its students two years ago, it never informed them of the tracking feature, said Young, the district spokesman.

He conceded that district officials went too far. The program was not intended to bring to light the private behaviors of adolescent boys, he conceded.

“It did not seek specifically to do that,” Young said.

The name and maker of the program, Young said, was not immediately available. He described the program as one that “basically enables the district to capture an image of the desktop and whatever is in front of the screen for law enforcement to help track down a missing computer.”

Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/02/school-district-halts-webcam-surveillance/

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Tracy, (CA), residents will now have to pay every time they call 9-1-1 for a medical emergency.

But there are a couple of options. Residents can pay a $48 voluntary fee for the year which allows them to call 9-1-1 as many times as necessary.

Or, there’s the option of not signing up for the annual fee. Instead, they will be charged $300 if they make a call for help.

“A $300 fee and you don’t even want to be thinking about that when somebody is in need of assistance,” said Tracy resident Greg Bidlack.

Residents will soon receive the form in the mail where they’ll be able to make their selection. No date has been set for when the charges will go into effect.

http://cbs13.com/local/tracy.911.calls.2.1502690.html

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By Cory Doctorow

According to the filings in Blake J Robbins v Lower Merion School District (PA) et al, the laptops issued to high-school students in the well-heeled Philly suburb have webcams that can be covertly activated by the schools’ administrators, who have used this facility to spy on students and even their families. The issue came to light when the Robbins’s child was disciplined for “improper behavior in his home” and the Vice Principal used a photo taken by the webcam as evidence. The suit is a class action, brought on behalf of all students issued with these machines.

If true, these allegations are about as creepy as they come. I don’t know about you, but I often have the laptop in the room while I’m getting dressed, having private discussions with my family, and so on. The idea that a school district would not only spy on its students’ clickstreams and emails (bad enough), but also use these machines as AV bugs is purely horrifying.

Schools are in an absolute panic about kids divulging too much online, worried about pedos and marketers and embarrassing photos that will haunt you when you run for office or apply for a job in 10 years. They tell kids to treat their personal details as though they were precious.

your privacy is worthless and you shouldn’t try to protect it.

Update: The school district admits that student laptops were shipped with software for covertly activating their webcams, but denies wrongdoing.

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/02/17/school-used-student.html

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“Yah, Whatever.”

-F.F.

(AFP) – 1 day ago

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s administration plans to rebrand its military operation in Iraq “Operation New Dawn,” beginning September 1, a Pentagon memorandum shows.

The memo, signed by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, shows the Pentagon approving a request to switch the name of the US military effort in Iraq from its current designation — “Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

“The request… is approved to take effect 1 September 2010, coinciding with the change of mission for US forces in Iraq.

“Aligning the name change with the change of mission sends a strong signal that Operation Iraqi Freedom has ended and our forces are operating under a new mission,” Gates wrote in the memo, first reported by ABC News.

The document, which is addressed to General David Petraeus, the head of US Central Command, adds the rebranding “presents opportunities to synchronize strategic communication initiatives… and recognize our evolving relationship with the government of Iraq.”

The move quickly drew criticism from Military Families United, a national security pressure group.

“You cannot end a war simply by changing its name,” Brian Wise, the group’s executive director, said in a statement.

“Despite the administration’s efforts to spin realities on the ground, their efforts do not change the situation at hand in Iraq.

“Operational military decisions should not be made for purposes of public relations but should be made in the best interests of our nation, the troops on the ground and their families back home.”

Obama ran for office in 2008 on a platform that emphasized a pledge to withdraw US troops from Iraq and focus on the war in Afghanistan.

There are now some 97,000 US troops stationed in Iraq, the first time the number has fallen below 100,000 since the US-led invasion of the country in 2003, according to the Pentagon.

That figure is scheduled to fall to around 50,000 by the end of August, with those troops left behind functioning in advisory and training roles solely.

All US troops are scheduled to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g1Bg95t6yV42auorK9zui8XPe6Pg

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“I don’t know… don’t you think Bill O’Reilly needs to be… like… flung off the face of the Earth. He really serves no purpose for the evolution of the human race. Suicide Bill… it’s always an option. For your crippling emotional pain, your madness,  and your failure at manhood, (or womanhood).”

-Fred Face 2/20/10

Bill O’Reilly interviewed the founder of the Oathkeepers tonight. During their discussion O’Reilly supported gun confiscation during hurricanes. He told the Oathkeeper that his views on the Second Amendment were extreme.

O’Reilly labeled Stewart’s refusal to obey unconstitutional orders “a pretty extreme position”. Can there be a scintilla of doubt left that people like O’Reilly and Glenn Beck do not represent Constitutionalist, Tenth Amendment activists and Tea Party members?

The previous evening, O’Reilly allowed a Southern Poverty Law Center, (total front organization), stooge to demonize the Oath Keepers as violent extremists.

http://www.infowars.com/bill-oreilly-supports-gun-confiscation-during-weather-emergencies/

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“So some bad news today here in Austin.Very suspicious… the whole thing. Unfortunately, I got all the breaking news at work from two fuckin’ idiots on some “half-time” radio show on the classic rock station. They sounded like they were reading from a DHS fax they were sent the night before. They absolutely said at one point in the broadcast that,  ”the building’s structure was severely compromised and in danger of collapsing.” Which raised a big fat red flag. I haven’t heard that from any other news source but I haven’t been looking yet. Anyway, don’t have a handle on it yet but the whole thing stinks like Rick Perry’s dandruff. Obviously… feeling bad for anyone who was killed.”

Fred Face 2/18/09

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By John Ozimek

France yesterday put in its bid for an unlikely prize, becoming the first western country to make even Australia look liberal when it comes to state powers of internet censorship.

In the teeth of fierce opposition both inside and outside parliament, the National Assembly approved, by 312 votes to 214 against, a first reading of a bill on Internal Security – the quaintly titled “LOPPSI 2″.

LOPPSI – otherwise known as Loi d’Orientation et de Programmation pour la SÈcuritÈ IntÈrieure (pdf)- is a ragbag of measures designed to make France a safer place. Like similar UK legislation – most notably the various Criminal Justice acts brought in over the last decade – LOPPSI brings together a number of apparently unrelated proposals which would severely restrict individual rights in all walks of life.

Last week, for instance, the Assembly agreed to include within the new law a measure that would allow Prefects to sign off on a curfew for children aged under 13, out unaccompanied between the hours of 11 pm and 6 am.

The bill also includes measures that would increase police spend on “security”, create additional penalties for counterfeiting and ID theft, increase CCTV surveillance, and widen access to the Police DNA database.

However, it is in the online area that some of the most radical proposals are to be found, with the criminalisation of online ID theft, provision for the police to tap online connections in the course of investigations, and most controversially of all, allowing the state to order ISPs to block (filter) specific internet URLs according to ministerial diktat.

It has also been suggested that the state should have the right to plant covert trojans to monitor individual PC usage.

Whilst the latter measures are put forward on the grounds of child protection, critics have been quick to point out that, in the absence of any judicial oversight mechanism, this is a power just waiting to be abused.

A broad coalition of groups and individuals outside the French parliamentary system have been scathing in their condemnation. LOPPSI, a site dedicated to this law, writes: “The French Government has got it worked out. To place limits on the free space that is the internet, they have to control it: but how can they destroy such a space without fierce resistance?”

The dishonest answer, according to this site, is to use the paedophile as a pretext. Because, they say “the whole world is instantly terrified”. Despite this, the measures proposed will do little to safeguard children – and nothing to prevent anyone who can afford to spend €5 a month from accessing the same material via VPN.

Similar arguments have been put forward in the Assembly by a number of Deputies. Patrick Braouzec and Michel VaxËs proposed the deletion of this power, arguing that it does not really solve the child pornography issue. They argued that this approach could be a mistake as filtering will allow hiding the evolution of the phenomenon, whilst Paedophiles who use the internet are very capable of getting around any filtering techniques by using crypting and anonymisation methods, thus being “paradoxically, better protected”. Amendments along the same lines were also put forward by Deputies Lionel Tardy and Nicolas Dupont-Aignan.

Meanwhile, the French Data Protection Authority, CNIL, has made plain its concerns with several of the proposed measures. CNIL expressed fears related to several provisions of the draft, especially in relation to the collection and retention of data, installation of Trojan horses on computers and the surveillance of public access to the Internet.

The legislation still has some way to go. However, the sentiment contained within the draft that passed yesterday is populist and, on the voting evidence so far, many Deputies are clearly well aware of that.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/17/france_ip_law/

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In a recent interview posted on iamrogue.com, Sex Pistols co-founder Steven Jones and Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan discuss everything from HAARP and weather weapons to GMO foods, the elite depopulation agenda and the possibility for a genuine freedom movement in the United States.

What starts out as a passing reference to HAARP—the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program that has been linked to weather control—quickly develops into a serious conversaton about the ways the population are being manipulated and enslaved for the promotion of an elite agenda. That agenda, as both Jones and Corgan point out, focuses on making people unhealth and keeping them that way. It is enacted through manipulation of the food supply, the control and restriction of vital resources like drinking water, and the distraction of the public with media-created simulations of hope and change.

At one point, the conversation turns to the question of who is behind this agenda. Jones asks if Corgan believes in an “Illuminati” who is puppeteering events from behind the scenes, adding “I believe that is kind of the concept.” Corgan responds with a salient observation:”The common frustration of the common man is that things don’t work, but then after a while you start thinking ‘Well, maybe they don’t work for a reason. Maybe they want things to break.’” He then gives the examples of the engineered end of national sovereignty and the engineered economic collapse.

These observations are all the more remarkable because they represent the fundamental shift that is taking place in the population’s understanding of the current political paradigm. Just a year ago, Corgan seemed to buy in to the intense marketing campaign that held up the Obama administration as the harbinger of true hope and change for America; now he seems to acknowledge that Obama is part and parcel of the elite agenda, just another serviceable puppet to be used by the very Wall Street,military-industrial, Big Pharma and Big Agra interests that put him into power in the first place. Perhaps it was the swine flu hoax which recently started coming apart at the seams that prompted Corgan on this path.

Ultimately, Corgan and Jones are just celebrities and as such their pronouncements are no more or less important than any other citizen. But given that the media and the arts are supposed to be reflections of our society, what does it tell us about our society that television stars, movie stars and musicians are increasingly discovering the true political paradigm of freedom versus tyranny and eschewing the controlled left/right debate between the two arms of the same New World Order system? And given that the freedom movement’s message is increasingly being represented by artists and then picked up and distributed by a genuine grassroots alternative media, what does that say about the future of the establishment media control grid and their quickly fading power to dismiss legitimate questioning about the power structures that govern society as mere ‘conspiracy theorizing‘?

http://www.infowars.com/sex-pistols-smashing-pumpkins-members-discuss-haarp-gm-foods-illuminati/

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“Just getting you acclimated for full time snooping. Incrementally moving closer to having a FBI/DHS man crawling up your ass with a flash light to see what’s going on with that free-thinking brain of yours… Johnny Skid-Marks.”

-Fred Face 2/13/09

DHS Is Monitoring Social Media and Web Sites for Terror and Disaster Info

By JASON RYAN

As the winter Olympics begin, the Department of Homeland Security has disclosed that it will be monitoring the comments and posts on websites and social media like Twitter for information on possible terror threats. Among the sites listed in a privacy impact statement filed Friday afternoon by DHS are the Drudge Report, the Huffington Post, Twitter, Google and this web site, the Blotter.

The National Operations Center of DHS will watch the web for information, according to the statement, to “provide situational awareness” in the event of natural disaster, an “act of terrorism, or other manmade disaster.”

“The Olympics are a potential target for such events,” said the statement. The statement did not list all web sites and social media that the NOC will monitor, but provided 31 examples, many of them, like the Blotter, sites that cover breaking news, security, or terror.

DHS officials say they will not be monitoring the web sites extensively, but would use the sites as a reference and open source tool in the event of an incident or emergency. DHS officials also used the monitoring of social media sites in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake to aid rescue efforts.

In one instance a DHS employee noticed a message on a web site about a person trapped under rubble in Port-au-Prince and was able to direct a State Department team to help in the rescue.

One official told ABC News that monitoring the web sites during an emergency is like watching “a canary in a coal mine,” since social media sites can have real-time information. The official said the raw information that is available on the sites can help first responders and law enforcement officials make quick assessments to help in their response to events.

The privacy report, prepared by the agency’s chief privacy officer, Mary Ellen Callahan, notes, “The aggregation of data published via social media sites will likely make it possible for the NOC to provide more accurate situational awareness, a more complete common operating picture, and more timely 2010 Winter Olympics-related information for decision makers.”

The statement also says that while some personally identifiable information (PII) could be obtained during the monitoring of the web sites, DHS guidelines require it to destroy the information. But the statement adds that the information is already widely available in the public domain.

One website that is not included on the DHS approved sites for monitoring is Facebook, since Facebook would require officials to log in.

While Canada is leading the security effort for the games with an estimated price tag of almost $1 billion, US law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, Customs Border Protection (CBP), Coast Guard, and DHS, will be assisting with security efforts due to Vancouver’s proximity to the U.S.-Canada border.

CBP previously announced that they would be expanding the number of inspection lanes on the border at the Peace Arch crossing from 8 to 10 lanes to assist with cross-border traffic during the games. DHS and the State of Washington have also established 2010 Olympics Coordination Center to help with any response efforts that would take place on the U.S. side of the border during the games.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/olympics-feds-reading-tweets/story?id=9825070

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