AMERICA UNDER SIEGE

GOVERNMENT PRESENTATION: SPECIAL EVENTS AS PLANNED DISASTER

2013-05-25T01:27:00.001-04:00

I am making no claim to understand what happened at the Boston Marathon. I do believe some of that whole bombing scenario had elements of Bizzarro World. Just sayin'.

I think we can guesstimate that most likely this PDF was created some three years ago based on a picture in the presentation of the 110th Boston Marathon whereas this years was the 113th.

Click this link to view a Boston government PDF entitled:

"Marathons" A Tale of Two Cities and The Running of a Planned Mass Casualty Event"

Some of the highlights from the "Presentation Overview" include:

Planned Disaster Content

Groundwork

Planning

Collaboration

Execution

Evaluation and Analysis

Under "Collaboration" we find this interesting tidbits:

"Working With The Media"
"Their mission is to get a story. Building a long standing relationship with journalists and reporters ensures that they get the right story and that they serve as a resource when needed"

DOJ VS Fox News - Eric Holder Ok'd Search Warrent

2013-05-24T11:13:00.002-04:00

Massteaparty

OBAMA'S IRS SPIES

2013-05-24T10:59:00.000-04:00

"The issue is never the issue" - Saul Alinsky

WCJournalism

"NATIONAL POLICE FORCE" MONITORING IRS PROTESTS!

2013-05-24T10:47:00.002-04:00

"We are creating a national Police Department, Police Force, and no one is saying a word"

Jared Law

OBAMA:
"We can no longer rely only on our military for the National security objectives that we have set. We've got to have a civilian National Security Force, that is just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded"
squawkboxnoise

IRS SUED FOR SEIZING 60 MILLION MEDICAL RECORDS

2013-05-18T23:59:00.003-04:00

WashingtonTimes

A healthcare provider has sued the Internal Revenue Service and 15 of its agents, charging they wrongfully seized 60 million medical records from 10 million Americans.
The name of the provider is not yet known, United Press International said. But Courthouse News Service said the suit claims the agency violated the Fourth Amendment in 2011, when agents executed a search warrant for financial data on one employee – and that led to the seizure of information on 10 million, including state judges.
The search warrant did not specify that the IRS could take medical information, UPI said. And information technology officials warned the IRS about the potential to violate medical privacy laws before agents executed the warrant, the complaint said, as reported by UPI.
“Despite knowing that these medical records were not within the scope of the warrant, defendants threatened to ‘rip’ the servers containing the medical data out of the building if IT personnel would not voluntarily hand them over,” the complaint states, UPI reported.
The suit also says IRS agents seized workers’ phones and telephone data – more violations of the warrant, UPI reported.
The complaint alleges the IRS was “invasive and unlawful” and stole access to intimate medical records that included patients’ treatment plans and therapies, UPI said.
The suit seeks $25,000 in compensatory damages, per violation. The records’ seizure could impact up to one in 25 Americans, UPI said.

Alan Keyes: Obama Working with Terrorists to Introduce Martial Law

2013-05-18T00:56:00.006-04:00

H/T "Scoop"Jacks
PatriotActionNetwork

Alan Keyes says the IRS scandal is a ploy to shield Obama's secret collaboration with terrorists to create chaos, introduce tyrannical government and destroy America.

America’s “Voluntary” Tax System

2013-05-17T19:31:00.001-04:00

STOP THE PRESSES AND GIVE YOUR PAYROLL OFFICE A CALL! TAXES ARE VOLUNTARY!
I guess I missed school the day then went over our voluntary tax system.

Whatever you do, don't miss the video in this piece and be sure you are holding on to something so you don't fall over while your sides split from laughter. My gosh, these people have authority in our government? I would not put them in charge of my goldfish.
**still shaking head from astonishment**
Anyway, I did hear a good portion of today's hearing starring IRS Commissioner Steve Miller. As far as I could determine, he isn't with the band, but the song he was singing certainly could have won him a Grammy for best song and dance number before Congress. - W.E.

HumanEvents

At the House Ways and Means hearings on Friday, Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller said (among many other jaw-dropping things) that the problems at his agency could be boiled down to “horrible customer service.” Of course, “customers” patronize businesses voluntarily. There’s nothing voluntary about the relationship between the IRS and American citizens.
But Miller also described the tax system as “voluntary.” Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA) supported him. Of course, every sane person listening to this drivel immediately declared their desire to un-volunteer.
A sharp-eyed Twitter correspondent, TalkRadio200, spotlighted at Twitchy.com remembered hearing this “voluntary tax system” line before. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) peddled it during an unintentionally hilarious interview with a very patient, but persistent, host named Jan Helfeld in 2008:

America’s “voluntary” tax system

This idea didn’t originate with Reid. He’s just twisting it into a pretzel of Orwellian socialist rhetoric because he doesn’t want to admit that the government uses force to redistribute income. Tax preparation software company Turbo Tax offers a concise summary of the voluntary taxation concept:

The nature of the voluntary tax system in the U.S. takes the calculation of taxes owed out of the hands of the federal government. You are responsible as an individual taxpayer to calculate what you owe. You’re expected to voluntarily comply with the tax code by reporting what you owe to the government and paying the entire amount that you owe under the law.
The Internal Revenue Code is the law of the land when it comes to determining your tax liability. While you may be able to take a deduction here or there that’s in a gray area, and you may be able to argue that you have complied with all applicable tax laws, the taxes that you are legally required to pay are outlined in the IRC.
Although the U.S. tax system is voluntary, failure to comply carries stiff penalties. If you under-report your income or overstate your deductions, you’ll face fines and interest charges. If you fail to file a tax return, the IRS will file a substitute return based only on the information it has — meaning you likely won’t receive the benefit of any deductions and will end up paying more tax than you should. The IRS also has the power to levy your bank accounts, garnish your wages and place a lien on your property if you don’t voluntarily pay what you owe. In serious cases, you may even face criminal charges.

In other words, the “voluntary” aspect of taxation is that you’re allowed to figure up your own tax liability, either on your own or by hiring professional assistance. It has nothing to do with the nature of taxation itself, or your obligation to participate in the system, which is why Reid makes such a fool of himself when he tries to portray American taxation as some kind of free-willed community-spirit activity, compared to the dictatorial income seizures of certain other unspecified governments. He does eventually get around to an essentially correct definition of “voluntary taxation,” but connoisseurs of the absurd will find much to savor before he gets there.
Socialists love to appropriate the language of free enterprise to cloak their agenda of compulsory income redistribution. They frequently refer to taxes as “contributions.” When they want to raise taxes, they describe it as “asking” the targets of class warfare to “pay their fair share.” Their endless references to “fairness” are meant to portray them as noble seekers of cosmic balance, obeying transcendent principles, rather than greedy politicians hungry to confiscate more loot from the people who earned it.
And when the government spends money, its faithful acolytes sanctify the process by calling it “investment” – which is perverse and ludicrous, because investment is voluntary, and investors suffer the consequences of poor or unlucky decisions, unlike the super-State and its unicorn-powered Treasury printing presses.
Therefore, it’s not surprising to hear these silly efforts to portray the IRS as an operation “customers” would “voluntarily” patronize. They like to think of the entire bloated central government in those terms, as a loving maternal caretaker and “partner” that just wants to help good people achieve their dreams. They know what the IRS really is, they understand the obscene amounts of power it commands, and they appreciate the deadly consequences to republican self-government when those powers are abused for political ends. They just don’t want you thinking about those weighty issues. Much tyranny can be hidden behind a smiley-face pin.
It would be great if the defenders of liberty could retake the English language from these hooligans, depriving them of a vital tool for herding gullible people down the socialist rat hole. I’d stay away from playing these little word games with “voluntary taxation” if I were them. Few of us are gullible enough to swallow that without choking on it.

DHS Illegals Detainees Released - Senators: More Than 600 Had Criminal Records

2013-05-16T18:14:00.000-04:00

Massteaparty

Police Chief Asks Citizens for Ammo, Gets 1,500 Round Loan Amid Strong Response

2013-05-16T17:47:00.005-04:00

This post is not sponsored by the Democratic Party :)

-W.E.

CNSNews

As the "Great Ammunition Shortage" continues, police departments across the country are struggling to supply their arsenals.
One police chief turned to the community for help, and citizens stepped up.
In Proctor, Minnesota, police chief Walter Wobig says that his suppliers have told him he'll have to wait "months" for the 1,000 rounds he's requested.

When Wobig turned to the residents of Proctor by putting out a call for help meeting his department's ammo needs, citizens contacted his office, eager to help.
"The citizens were like, 'If you need something, we got plenty here,'" said Wobig.
One resident and a Proctor police officer loaned 1,500 rounds from their personal stockpile to the department.
The Chief says others offered to help too. "I had several other calls from other citizens that said, 'Hey, if you need more ammunition we have plenty,'" said Wobig.
The Chief says that when his ammunition order is filled, he will be repaying the citizens for their contributions.

In the Wake of Boston Bombings, CNN Calls for Real-time Police State Surveillance (video)

2013-05-16T17:19:00.004-04:00

There goes the media again, pushing their communist agenda down our collective throats, and the sheeple just nod their heads in agreement. - W.E.

VC

I stated in a previous article on the Boston Bombings that one way of determining if an “attack” is in fact a false-flag event is to see if an agenda is pushed on the public in the weeks following it.
Well, several agendas were indeed pushed on the public, one of them being the praising of video surveillance. In the wake of the attacks, most media sources were basically saying: “Thank God we have these cameras monitoring people because they’ve enabled us to catch the terrorists! Hurray for the police state!”.
But, according to CNN, that wasn’t enough. Cameras should not only identify evil-doers but predict those who are about to do something evil. For this reason, this CNN report calls for real-time police surveillance across the board.

So the anchor at the beginning of the video says: “Its frustrating for people in Boston to see the terrorists on video knowing that police weren’t even looking for them”. Huh? This sentence doesn’t make any sense. Why would the police be looking for someone who did not do anything yet?
The report then proceeds to talk about the uselessness of surveillance cameras that cannot prevent crimes. Paula Newton then interviews Juliette Kayyem – who is ANOTHER CNN EMPLOYEE. She confirms that having people actively monitoring citizens and arresting those who look suspicious in order to “prevent crimes” is very necessary.
Paula Newton then says that, in London, “authorities tracked and traced my every move through the crowded streets” as if that was a great thing. (In a 2011 article, I posted a video describing how London CCTV are able to identify, track and follow individuals). The reporter adds, “this didn’t happen in Boston”, therefore implying that the lack of Big-Brotherish police state surveillance in Boston was a fail that cost lives.
For the sake of being “unbiased”, the report interviewed a “concerned person” for about 12 seconds to nevertheless conclude that real-time surveillance is necessary. In short, this report is another example of the elite using a traumatic event to get people to agree with the loss of liberties and increased surveillance.

"Dreams From My Real Father" Filmmaker on Obama’s Enemies List?

2013-05-15T00:15:00.001-04:00

AccuracyinMedia

The revelations about the IRS targeting voices opposed to Barack Obama’s political agenda came of no surprise to filmmaker Joel Gilbert.
His private financial accounts were hacked into and the information used by a George Soros-linked journalist, Seth Rosenfeld, before the presidential election. Gilbert wants to know who provided Rosenfeld with his private bank records. Was it someone at the IRS? Or at the White House?
Gilbert directed the blockbuster film, “Dreams from My Real Father,” which was heavily criticized by the left before the November 2012 presidential election because of the Obama campaign’s fear it could alert voters to Obama’s communist connections and Marxist philosophy. The film featured evidence that Obama’s real father was Frank Marshall Davis, a Communist Party USA operative who indoctrinated Obama into a Marxist ideology during his formative years in Hawaii.
Gilbert was interviewed extensively on radio and television, as well as by major newspapers such as The New York Times, which apparently feared the film would have an impact on the election outcome. His announcement of a promotional campaign to send millions of DVDs for free to various states was of major concern to Obama’s backers in the media.
We noted in our pre-election story, Last Minute Anti-Romney Dirty Tricks Target Filmmaker, that the invasion of Gilbert’s privacy seemed to be an attack on donors to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, since some of them had also contributed to the distribution of Gilbert’s film.
In addition to the scrutiny of his donors, Gilbert tells AIM that in early 2012, the IRS reopened his 2009 tax return, and simply denied all of his business expenses, even though they were well-documented. “My accountant said he had never seen anything like it in 30 years of experience with the IRS,” he told AIM. “To resolve the issue, my accountant met the IRS auditor in Los Angeles, and reported that she had a print-out of the home page of the “Dreams from My Real Father” official film website on her desk. Despite the resubmission of the 2009 expenses, the IRS has still not closed the case, and my accountant continues to meet with them every few months. The next meeting is set for May 19th.”
He says, “I believe I have been illegally targeted by the IRS because my films and interviews have run contrary to President Obama’s official narrative of who he is and what his policies really are for America. The fact that the IRS targeted me indicates they were afraid of me and the information in my film.”
It was in late October of 2012 that the scrutiny of his customers came to light. He says, “…unknown parties illegally acquired private company bank information, and it was passed on to left-wing journalist Seth Rosenfeld, who began targeting my customers who purchased large quantities of the “Dreams from My Real Father” DVD, as well as a limited partner.”
Rosenfeld works for the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR), funded by the pro-Marxist billionaire George Soros. Accuracy in Media named the CIR as being among an extensive network of Soros-supported media organizations in our 2004 report, The Hidden Soros Agenda: Drugs, Money, the Media, and Political Power.
Rosenfeld denied that he engaged in any improper or illegal conduct.
But Gilbert says, “The bank information could only be accessed by the IRS or from my corporate bank account with a confidential user ID and password. On October 26th, Seth Rosenfeld called me directly and began citing bank deposit amounts that he purported to be bank wire transfers received in my company bank account, and asked what they were used for. I was so shocked that he claimed to have confidential bank information, I asked him to send an email and hung up, but no email was received.”
Gilbert goes on: “Next, Rosenfeld called a company limited partner on his private number and fraudulently introduced himself as being with the Romney campaign and asked for a donation. When the partner said he wasn’t interested, Rosenfeld admitted to being a reporter and began citing the partner’s confidential bank wiring history. The partner hung up. Next, Rosenfeld called the elderly mother of a customer who had purchased a large quantity of DVDs by check. Rosenfeld tricked the woman into giving out her son’s home phone number by pretending to be an old friend. When Rosenfeld called the customer, Rosenfeld cited the amount of the check, and asked about his political beliefs, and asked by name whether he knew others who made purchases from my company.”
Finally, Gilbert says a major buyer of DVDs was contacted by Rosenfeld on his private unlisted cell phone number. “Again, Rosenfeld cited the customer’s transfer amount to my company, asked what it was for, and asked him to detail his political opinions and any donations to Republican campaigns, including Romney’s,” he says. “Finally, Rosenfeld called my DVD replicator on her private number, but she hung up, as I had forewarned her that Rosenfeld’s campaign might be coming her way.”
“Dreams from My Real Father” was Gilbert’s most recent film on Obama. He also produced the 2010 award winning “Atomic Jihad: Ahmadinejad’s Coming War and Obama’s Politics of Defeat.”
Based on the evidence in his and other cases coming to light, Gilbert says he believes there is a “criminal conspiracy” that used the IRS “to target the First Amendment rights of Americans,” and that President Obama and other high-level officials should be targets of the investigation into the admitted wrongdoing
jgil14

IRANIAN TERRORIST CELLS TO STRIKE WITHIN U.S.

2013-05-14T02:06:00.001-04:00

Why are there 35 terrorist training camps/compounds spread out across the United States?

Why do 81 % of the mosques in America preach violent jihad?
Why are radical Muslims illegally coming across our borders every day?
Why has the Muslim Brotherhood been able to infiltrate the White House?
Why does Barack Obama wear a ring inscribed: "There is no God but Allah"?
Why do Obama's family members in Kenya raise funds for Wahabbi Islam?

WND

Iran has given the go-ahead to operatives of three terrorist groups that have infiltrated the United States to carry out missions, including what is expected to be a Mumbai-style attack on a hotel where innocent bystanders would be killed, WND has learned.
A full report with many details of the missions has been passed on to U.S. officials.
Three targets have been chosen within America for imminent attack, and the terror teams have now cut communications with the operational center in Iran, a sign that they are moving ahead with the attacks, according to a high-level intelligence officer within the Islamic regime.
If only one of the attacks occurs, the regime will consider the operation a success, the source said. Tehran believes, he said, an attack would not be traced back to Iran due to the nationalities of the operators.

One of the planned attacks resemble the Mumbai attack in 2008, the source added, in which a hotel was targeted, hostages were taken and 164 people were killed over several days. India alleges Pakistan used proxies to carry out the Mumbai attack so it wouldn’t be traced back to Pakistan, just as Iran now is using proxies to hide its current terrorism. The information provided by the source provides details of a new jihadist coalition with a focus on creating instability in the U.S.
The source said the regime views the Boston bombing as a successful terrorist attack in which fear was created, U.S. intelligence questioned and a sense of security diminished. There has yet to be any link to a specific group or country.
As WND reported exclusively April 22, the regime’s Quds Forces have done extensive planning on gatherings, events and high-value targets in the U.S., but for two years have focused on events such as the Boston Marathon. The Quds Forces run an extensive network of terrorists out of South Asia.
A Feb. 14, 2010, meeting in Iran either set up the new jihadist coalition or continued the coalition among the Quds Forces, Hezbollah and al-Qaida. The latter coalition was formed years ago by Imad Mugniyeh, the dead mastermind terrorist from Hezbollah, under the direction of Ahmad Vahidi, then the head of the Quds Forces and the current Iranian defense minister, to collaborate on their fight against the U.S.
At the 2010 meeting, Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Forces; Seif Adel, the operational head of al-Qaida; and Mustafa Badr al-Din, the operational head of Hezbollah; devised a plan for operations against the U.S. under a new coalition, dubbed the “Coalition of Muslim Soldiers.” The coalition includes al-Shabaab, an al-Qaida offshoot based in Somalia, and has its central command in the Iranian city of Kerman. Command and control centers are located in the Iranian provinces of Kerman, Khorasan, Khuzestan, Kurdistan, and Sistan and Baluchistan, the source said.
The coalition, led by Soleimani, with Iran the main source of funding, is based on a strategic collaboration and devoid of ideological differences and opinions of Shiite and Sunni Marjas. The main operational commanders, mostly well-known terrorists, are:

Gen. Soleimani, the head of the Quds Forces with full power given to him by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Brig. Gen. Abdolreza Shahlabi of the Quds Forces.
Brig. Gen. Hamed Abdollahi of the Quds Forces.
Brig. Gen. Hossein Movahedian of the Quds Forces.
Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr of the Quds Forces.
Seif Adel, the operational head of al-Qaida.
Abdul Rahman Yasin of al-Qaida operations.
Abu Saeed al-Mesri of al-Qaida in Latin America.
Adnan ShokriJuma of al-Qaida in America.
Hakimalah Masoud of al-Qaida operations.
Mustafa Badr al-Din, the operations head of Hezbollah and the brother-in-law and cousin of the dead terrorist Imad Mugniyah, who now serves as Mugnyiah’s replacement as the military leader of Hezbollah and the deputy to the Quds’ Soliemani.
Talal Hamieh, the head of the External Security Organization, strategic planning and funding for Hezbollah in Venezuela. He commutes directly from Venezuela to Damascus, Syria, then to Lebanon and back.
Fozi Mohammad Mostafa of Hezbollah operations.
Mohammad Ali Hamdi of Hezbollah operations in Toronto, Canada. He targets nuclear power plants and other sites in Canada.
Ebrahim Saleh Mohammad al-Yaghoub of Hezbollah operations.
Mohammad Ahmad al-Monavar, the operations commander for Abu Nidal.
Jahad Servan Mostafa, the operations commander for al-Shabaab in Somalia.

Based on intelligence and infiltration by Western intelligence agencies into institutions, operations and cultural centers of radical Arab Islamists after 9/11, the new coalition recruits non-Arab Islamists from many other nationalities and Arabs from countries not on the hot list for American agencies.
Iran believes that the perception of security in America that has helped empower its actions in the Middle East must be turned 180 degrees, not only to defeat and derail all U.S. calculations based on gathered intelligence but to destabilize the political, economic and social conditions in America, the source said.
Based on that understanding, he said, the U.S. through its military might has kept the fight in the Islamic region and away from its homeland and its allies’ turf. Now continuous operations must be conducted in the U.S. homeland to change that equation, they believe.
More than 2,600 targets, including public places, government buildings and military installations, have been chosen for attack, and reconnaissance has been done. Information about some of the targets, based on direct knowledge of the source, has been given to U.S. officials to neutralize the threat and confront the terrorists. They include specific government buildings, news networks, malls and sports events.
This new coalition has also prepared for a major attack to avenge al-Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden’s killing to satisfy Seif Adel, the operational head of al-Qaida, for his collaboration with the Iranian regime.
The radical regime ruling Iran has set up several channels for financial support of the new coalition with its terrorist activities. Multiple commerce, cultural and financial institutions in the U.S. are part of that network. The connection includes individuals running businesses in Damascus and its connections to al-Qaida operatives in America.
Since 2001, more than $270 million has been invested in the expansion of mosques and Islamic centers in America by institutions in the Iranian city of Qom. As part of the coalition’s plan, some 27 mosques and Islamic centers in America are their target for collaboration, infiltration and recruitment of sympathizers for various missions, including reconnaissance and terrorist acts.
The source said the new coalition, due to its composition of different people in Central Asia, is a very complex organization.
The publication of a limited version of the full report is an intention to put the Islamic regime on notice that should it go ahead with its planned attacks in the U.S. homeland, it will be held responsible, the source said.

72 HOUR RED FLAG BEFORE US MARTIAL LAW

2013-05-13T23:45:00.000-04:00

Thousands of American's are concerned about the totalitarian overtones of this government. Whether it be the NDAA, Executive Orders with ginormous incisors, the attack on the 2nd amendment simultaneous with purchases of ammo by DHS and other agencies large enough to shoot every American about 8 times over, or a host of other power grab policies and maneuvering.
Sometimes it is just a gut feeling that there have been way too many strange occurrences inside of the U.S. that ring of "false flag" to our good senses that are combined with a criminal media that sympathizes and covers up for an illegal President. I know I am not alone waiting for the next shoe to drop. A collapse of the dollar? Dirty bomb in one of our cities? Terror cells unleashed? Some other false flag?

"...do not be discouraged...for the battle is not yours, but God’s.” - 2 Chronicles 20:15

vinnieb571
h/t Susan J.

Immigration Bill Trojan Horse for Biometrics, National I.D.

2013-05-13T23:13:00.000-04:00

"The totalitarian control grid that is being set up right now isn't being established in one monolithic piece of legislation. It is being established in fragments that are converging into something much larger. If you wait until this unified picture is obvious to everyone, it will be too late."

"This isn't about immigration, it's about power"

StormCloudsGathering

BENGHAZI: PROTECTING THE THRONE

2013-05-11T08:51:00.001-04:00

Connelly

As a result of the May 8^th House of Representatives Committee hearing on the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya three chilling conclusions can be drawn.
First, the four Americans who were killed were abandoned by the very government they so bravely served. Days prior to the attack Ambassador Chris Stevens and others on his staff pointed out to the State Department that the security situation in Libya was deteriorating. There had already been a car bomb attack on the Consulate in Benghazi and an attempt had been made on the life of the British ambassador. Therefore, Ambassador Stevens wanted an increase in security personnel.
Yet, despite these reports and the fact that the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in 2001 was rapidly approaching these requests were denied and orders were issued actually reducing the number of security personnel already assigned to the Ambassador. Then when the attacks began on September 11^th, there is clear evidence that there were American military assets in the area, including a four man special ops team in Tripoli, that could have been used to break up the assault and save American lives. Instead of immediately deploying these assets, someone in the Obama administration ordered a stand down and no help was provided to the Ambassador and his embattled staff at the Consulate.
The second conclusion that can be clearly drawn is that the U.S. government knew from the beginning of the assault that this was a coordinated terrorist attack yet tried to hide this fact from the public for days. Instead of acknowledging that we had been struck by Jihadists once again on 9/11 administration officials, including the President and Secretary of State, claimed it was a spontaneous demonstration resulting from an obscure You Tube video critical of the prophet Mohammed that the demonstration somehow evolved into bloodshed. This was claimed despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

There are still more questions than answers and there will be more hearings, but the final inescapable conclusion to be drawn from this initial hearing is that the Administration, the vast majority of the Democrats in Congress, and most of the mainstream media don’t want the American people to know the truth. Their only interest is in protecting King Obama and his throne, and protecting his possible successor, Hilary Clinton. Instead of asking pertinent questions the Democrats on the committee spent most of their time attacking the Republicans and the valiant whistleblowers.

Indeed, these elected representatives of “we the people” drew their swords and locked their shields together in order to form a bulwark between the truth and the American people. This is a direct violation of their oath of office where they swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. The founding fathers carefully crafted the Constitution to set up a limited Federal government with three separate, but equal branches that would provide checks and balances to keep one branch from becoming too powerful and plunging our nation into tyranny. By refusing to rein in the excesses of the Executive Branch of government these so called “lawmakers” are failing to do what they are tasked to do by the Constitution. This is not only an impeachable offense, but is subject to criminal penalties under the provisions of 5 U.S.C. 7311 and 18 U.S.C. 1918.

As for the members of the national news media, they take no such oath but I contend that they are still bound by the duties imposed on them by the Constitution. The First Amendment provides for freedom of the press and the founding fathers placed it in the Constitution for a specific reason. They wanted a free press to be a watch dog over the Federal government to keep it from becoming tyrannical, lying to the American people, and taking away our God given freedoms. By refusing to dig for the truth about Benghazi and in fact assisting the Administration in the cover up much of the mainstream media has become nothing more than a propaganda forum for the President and his allies. They are no longer the standard bearers for a free press, but the disciples of tyranny.

It is time for us to take back our country and hold the enemies of our Constitution accountable for their actions.

Busted: State Department Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland Deliberately Lied to Reporters About Benghazi Talking Points (Video)

2013-05-10T13:53:00.000-04:00

GatewayPundit

Today ABC News confirmed that State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland raised specific objections to an original CIA draft on the Benghazi massacre. Nuland pushed her superiors to completely delete numerous references of extremists linked to al-Qa’ida in Benghazi and eastern Libya.
She also persuaded more senior officials to delete information on at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi by unidentified assailants prior to 9-11. After all, an election was coming up.
Obama officials agreed with Nuland and decided to lie to the American people and claim that the offensive YouTube video was the reason for the attack.
But during her press conference on September 17, 2012, Victoria Nuland told reporters that what Ambassador Risce said on the Sunday talk shows was “very clear, very precise, about what our initial assessment of what happened.”

Victoria Nuland lied.
Here’s the transcript from the State Department:

QUESTION: Toria, in Friday’s briefing, Friday evening, you essentially stated that all questions concerning any aspect of the Benghazi attack – the circumstances surrounding it, the outcome of it, et cetera – would henceforth be directed by you to the FBI since it’s their investigation.
And yet, on five Sunday shows yesterday, Ambassador Rice, who works for the same agency as you, was giving the latest U.S. assessment of how this event unfolded, specifically by saying we don’t believe it was premeditated or preplanned, and by saying that those with heavy arms and so forth showed up, in essence, as she put it, to hijack an ongoing demonstration.
So my first question for you is: Given that Ambassador Rice is out there talking publicly about it and not referring Bob Schieffer and Chris Wallace and the rest to the FBI, may we consider that we can again begin asking you questions at this podium about the circumstances of the attack? If it’s fair for the Ambassador to discuss it, it should be fair in this room, correct?
MS. NULAND: Well, let me start by reminding you that Ambassador Rice outranks me, as does my own boss, so she is often at liberty to say more than I am. And I guess that’s going to continue to be the case.
What I will say, though, is that Ambassador Rice, in her comments on every network over the weekend, was very clear, very precise, about what our initial assessment of what happened is. And this was not just her assessment. It was also an assessment that you’ve heard in comments coming from the intelligence community, in comments coming from the White House. I don’t have anything to give you beyond that.
She also made clear, as I had on Friday, that there is an ongoing FBI investigation. So frankly, I’m not sure that it’s useful to go beyond that. I’m not capable of going beyond that, and we’ll have to just see what the FBI investigation brings us.
QUESTION: You would acknowledge, however, that the account of the events, the preliminary account of the events that Ambassador Rice offered, diverges starkly from the account offered by the Libyan President, correct?
MS. NULAND: Well, we’ve heard a number of different things from Libya. I would simply say that what – the comments that Ambassador Rice made accurately reflect our government’s initial assessment.

It’s very clear today that lib Victoria Nuland was not honest with reporters.

America’s Roads Have Been Turned Into A Revenue Generating Surveillance Grid

2013-05-10T13:32:00.003-04:00

EconomicCollapse

What do speed traps, parking tickets, toll roads, speed cameras and red light cameras all have in common?
They are all major revenue sources for state and local governments. All over America today there are state and local governments that are drowning in debt. Many have chosen to use "traffic enforcement" as a way to raise desperately needed revenue. According to the National Motorist Association, issuing speeding tickets raises somewhere between 4.5 billion and 6 billion dollars in the United States each year. And the average price of a speeding ticket just keeps going up. Today, the national average is about $150, but in many jurisdictions it is far higher. For example, more than 16 million traffic tickets are issued in the state of California each year, and the average fine is approximately $250. If you are wealthy that may not be much of a problem, but if you are a family that is barely scraping by every month that can be a major financial setback. Meanwhile, America's roads are also being systematically transformed into a surveillance grid.

The number of cameras watching our roads is absolutely exploding, and automated license plate readers are capturing hundreds of millions of data points on all of us. As you drive down the highway, a police vehicle coming up behind you can instantly read your license plate and pull up a whole host of information about you.

This happened to me a few years ago. I had pulled on to a very crowded highway in Virginia and within less than a minute a cop car had scanned me and was pulling me over because one of my stickers had expired. But these automated license plate readers are being used for far more than just traffic enforcement now. For example, officials in Washington D.C. are now using automated license plate readers to track the movements of every single vehicle that enters the city. They know when you enter Washington, and they know when you leave. So where is all of this headed? Do we really want to live in a "Big Brother" society where the government constantly tracks all of our movements?
Back in the old days, the highways of America were great examples to the rest of the world of the tremendous liberties and freedoms that we enjoyed. Americans loved to hop into their vehicles and take a drive. But now government is sucking all of the fun out of driving. The control freak bureaucrats that dominate our political system have figured out that giant piles of money can be raised by turning our roads into revenue raising tools.
At this point things have gotten so bad that even some police officers are admitting what is going on. Just check out what a few of them told Car and Driver...

The president of a state police union isn’t pretending it doesn’t happen. James Tignanelli, president of the Police Officers Association of Michigan union, says, “When elected officials say, ‘We need more money,’ they can’t look to the department of public works to raise revenues, so where do they find it? Police departments.
“A lot of police chiefs will tell you the goal is to have nobody speeding through their community, but heaven forbid if it should actually happen—they’d be out of money,” Tignanelli says.
Police Chief Michael Reaves of Utica, Michigan, says the role of law enforcement has changed over the years. “When I first started in this job 30 years ago, police work was never about revenue enhancement, but if you’re a chief now, you have to look at whether your department produces revenues,” he says. “That’s just the reality nowadays.”

And as the economy has gone downhill, many jurisdictions have massively jacked up traffic fines. According to the Los Angeles Times, various traffic fines in the Los Angeles area are far higher than they once were...

If you're caught running a red light in Los Angeles, be prepared to shell out $446, up from $271 eight years ago. Make a rolling right turn at a stoplight and the ticket comes to $381 -- more than double what it cost in 2008.

And of course the cost to the driver does not end with the ticket. Your car insurance will likely go up as well. In fact, one study found that a driver that just gets one speeding ticket will pay an additional 20 percent for car insurance for the next three to six years.
That can add up to a lot of money.
But politicians just keep wanting to find a way to issue even more tickets. One of the hottest trends all over the country is to automate the issuing of traffic tickets by installing cameras. According to USA Today, this has become a huge growth industry...

Sales of the cameras have nearly quadrupled since companies moved to digital and wireless technology in the mid-2000s. The number of local contracts for cameras was up to 689 last year, from 155 in 2005, according to industry data complied by market leader American Traffic Solutions (ATS).

And these automated traffic cameras can raise an enormous amount of cash. Just check out what has been happening in Washington D.C....

The speeding and traffic light cameras have become more lucrative as their number in the District has increased. Combined, they issued tickets valued at $24.4 million in 2007. That figure more than doubled by 2010, to $50.9 million, and it reached $84.9 million in the last fiscal year.

But as annoying as those traffic cameras are, automated license plate readers are perhaps even more insidious.
The amount of data that these automated license plate readers are capturing is astounding. The following is from a recent article by the Electronic Frontier Foundation...

Photographing a single license plate one time on a public city street may not seem problematic, but when that data is put into a database, combined with other scans of that same plate on other city streets, and stored forever, it can become very revealing. Information about your location over time can show not only where you live and work, but your political and religious beliefs, your social and sexual habits, your visits to the doctor, and your associations with others. And, according to recent research reported in Nature, it’s possible to identify 95% of individuals with as few as four randomly selected geospatial datapoints (location + time), making location data the ultimate biometric identifier.

Our license plates have essentially become "our papers" which the government can read whenever it would like without even asking for our permission.
According to L.A. Weekly, local police agencies in the L.A. area have captured more than 160 million data points on private citizens using these automated license plate readers...

L.A. Weekly has learned that more than two dozen law enforcement agencies in Los Angeles County are using hundreds of these "automatic license plate recognition" devices (LPRs) — units about the size of a paperback book, usually mounted atop police cruisers — to devour data on every car that catches their electronic eye.
The L.A. County Sheriff's Department and the Los Angeles Police Department are two of the biggest gatherers of automatic license plate recognition information. Local police agencies have logged more than 160 million data points — a massive database of the movements of millions of drivers in Southern California.
Each data point represents a car and its exact whereabouts at a given time. Police have already conducted, on average, some 22 scans for every one of the 7,014,131 vehicles registered in L.A. County.

As the use of these devices becomes more widespread and they become even more sophisticated, eventually the government will know where almost all of us are and what almost all of us are doing at all times.
The following is a brief except from a Washington Post article that detailed how automated license plate readers are now being used to create a "dragnet" that will track the movements of all vehicles from the time that they enter Washington D.C. to the time that they leave...

More than 250 cameras in the District and its suburbs scan license plates in real time, helping police pinpoint stolen cars and fleeing killers. But the program quietly has expanded beyond what anyone had imagined even a few years ago.
With virtually no public debate, police agencies have begun storing the information from the cameras, building databases that document the travels of millions of vehicles.
Nowhere is that more prevalent than in the District, which has more than one plate-reader per square mile, the highest concentration in the nation. Police in the Washington suburbs have dozens of them as well, and local agencies plan to add many more in coming months, creating a comprehensive dragnet that will include all the approaches into the District.

This is just the beginning.
For now, as long as you carefully obey all traffic laws and you don't work in a major city like Washington D.C., the changes that are happening probably do not affect you too much.
But the key is to see where all of this is going. Our roads are slowly but surely being transformed into a revenue generating control grid. And this is just yet another example of how government feels the need to constantly watch, monitor, track and regulate everything that we do.
Does anyone else feel like the life is slowly being choked out of our society, or am I alone?

Benghazi Bombshells

2013-05-09T16:12:00.000-04:00

AtlasShrugs

Stevens warned the State Department of a 'security vacuum' in Libya.'

From June 2011 to July 2012, Eric Nordstrom, the regional security officer for Libya at the time, documented more than 200 security threats and violent incidents threatening to U.S. personnel in Libya.
Some 50 of those incidents occurred in Benghazi.
They repeatedly asked for more security.
Obama said no.
Instead they farmed out security to a jihadist group. The State Department hired a group to defend its mission that openly displayed its admiration for al-Qaida.
Here are highlights from Brisitsh media who have given this the attention it so deserves.
The radically partisan American Obamedia have been absent with the exception of FOX. This makes Watergate and Iran-Contra look like child's play.

• Gregory Hicks, former top deputy to Ambassador Christopher Stevens, gave a harrowing, dramatic account of the Benghazi attack. Hicks was in Tripoli the night of the attack. He was the last person to speak with Stevens on the phone. He said Stevens said the Benghazi mission was under attack but never mentioned a protest.

• Hicks testified that Obama administration statements that a protest had taken place damaged the diplomatic mission in Libya and hurt the Libyan president. One result, Hicks said, was that the FBI was shut out of Benghazi for 17-18 days, their investigation hampered. Hicks described his personal reaction to hearing UN Ambassador Susan Rice talk about a "protest" in Benghazi: "I was stunned. My jaw dropped. And I was embarrassed."
• Hicks testified that Cheryl Mills, chief of staff to then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton, called him and expressed her anger that he had met with a congressional fact-finding mission to Tripoli without a state department lawyer present. Hicks said he had never been allowed to read the classified state department report on the Benghazi attack.
• Hicks testified that he had been demoted "after I asked the question about Ambassador Rice's statement on the TV shows." "I've been effectively demoted from deputy chief of mission to desk officer," he said.
• Hicks testified that a group of four special forces troops was ready to travel on a Libyan plane from Tripoli to Benghazi after midnight, on the belief that the attack in Benghazi was ongoing. Hicks said it was his understanding that the regional defense command told the four men not to go. Hicks said he didn't know why the command was given.

Killed: Ambassador Christopher Stevens (left) died following smoke inhalation, while agent Sean Smith (right) died in a desperate battle

Heroic: Former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty (left) and Tyrone Woods (right) were killed in a mortar attack

NRA: The Untold Story of Gun Confiscation After Katrina

2013-05-08T01:12:00.003-04:00

In light of the full scale assault on our 2nd Amendment, I wanted to give this video more play because apparently millions and millions of Americans are falling for the propaganda spewing from the mouths of television news pundits and politicians, including of course the deceiver himself, Barry Soetoro. We must wake up to this tyranny! If you don't believe that your government would ever go house to house and take weapons of innocent citizens, then this is a must watch. -W.E.

NRAVideos

On Target Pressure Points: Militarized Police

2013-05-08T00:53:00.006-04:00

This is an enlightening and important piece by constitutional attorney John Rutherford who sheds light on facts such as local police across America, since 911, have received $34 billion in Federal grants to purchase military equipment. That Police are becoming more and more "aggressive" in dealing with suspects, many of whom are completely innocent and decent citizens. SWAT raids on wrong homes, resulting in accidental deaths are skyrocketing and going largely unreported.
-W.E.

RutherfordInstitute

In conjunction with the upcoming release of his new book, A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, John W. Whitehead sits down to discuss several "pressure points" that are threatening the Bill of Rights and undermining our essential freedoms. In part one of this special series, Whitehead examines the increased presence of militarized police.

Benghazi Drone Operator Calls Hannity w/ New Info: We Weren't able to be Armed, No One Contacted Me

2013-05-07T17:45:00.000-04:00

MichaelSavage4Prez

(Story from theblaze.com on 5/7/13) -
A man identifying himself as one of the drone operators on point during the September 11 Benghazi attack called Sean Hannity's radio show yesterday, alleging more information about the scene on the ground and the Obama administration's handling of the attack.
According to the man, named only as "John in Iowa," neither the administration nor Congress has even attempted to speak to him about what he saw during the attack. He told Hannity: "The video footage — when we initially got on station and we were told to go down to the consulate — it was already under attack. It was already on fire [when we got there]. We were asked then to go to the annex to just try to watch and make sure that the individuals in the annex were not going to be coming under attack there either..."

He continued: "If anything were to happen, this video is being disseminated to multiple locations and agencies around the globe. So surely once individuals saw that there was a grave problem on a U.S. Embassy/Consulate, phone calls I would've think should've been made and started going up the chain, and eventually it would've hit the State Department. If it did not, individuals were remiss in their duties."

John reiterated that they were working for an agency that already knew there was a problem in Benghazi; that's why they were sent there.
He continued: "There were dozens if not hundreds of people surrounding the consulate. There were cars continually driving by and stopping, and it was at that time — we were only over the consulate for maybe about five minutes when we were told to then go watch the CIA annex.
Our guys that were inside of there were on the rooftops, and they were looking in the direction of the consulate, and we were told, just watch the entries and the exits of the consulate and make sure no one's trying to break in and get them there. But we wouldn't have been able to do much anyway because of the [agreement] with the host countries where we're located. We were not able to be armed that night." [Emphasis added]
"I'm just a little surprised that you're telling me all this and that nobody in Congress has contacted you," Hannity said. "I would think that you'd be one of the main people they'd want to talk to."

"Ya I would think so too," the operator replied. "There would be only about six of us from the base out of which we operate at that would've been involved on that specific mission that night, and so it should be really easy to track us down. Then again, if they just did not care...especially with Sec. of State Clinton's comment of 'what difference does it make,' and trying to potentially cover things up, then they probably didn't even worry about who was on the flight log for that night."

John said he knew "immediately" that the American people were being lied to, particularly "with regard to Susan Rice" that the attack was actually an outgrowth of a YouTube-related "spontaneous" protest.

"But we are bound by certain documents such as non-disclosure agreements on what we can and can't say, and my thought was that I am a small pawn in this chess game, and the truth will come out, and then it just unfolds and unfolds...and it never stops."

He added: "Part of me says maybe I should've spoken up sooner, but you want to have faith and trust in your government, and that they would come out with the truth and get to the bottom of it. But apparently that's not what they wanted to do...The election was coming up and Hillary Clinton might want to run in 2016, God help us."

Obama Warns People To Reject Voices That Warn About Government Tyranny

2013-05-06T03:38:00.000-04:00

Yes, Barry, we should listen to you and your cronies who are busy creating and implementing the latest in technology to spy and monitor American's every move, phone conversation or email, even while you are ratcheting up supplies of ammunition and bringing in tanks and drones for "Homeland Security". In fact Barry, we should just stop insisting that the President of the United States provide a non-fraudulent birth certificate shouldn't we? We should stop wondering why you have spent millions to hide your identity from us shouldn't we Barry? Not only that, we probably owe you a big fat apology for ever being suspicious of why you love to lace your administration with the Muslim Brotherhood and Marxists.
- W.E.

matlarson10

Poll Shows 29 Percent of Voters Think 'Armed Revolution' Might Be Needed

2013-05-06T01:10:00.001-04:00

Fox

We knew distrust of government was high. But a new poll shows that suspicion reaching new levels.
According to a survey from Fairleigh Dickinson University, nearly a third of registered voters -- 29 percent -- believe an "armed revolution" might be necessary in the next few years in order to protect liberties.
The poll from the university's PublicMind explored perceptions regarding Congress' latest gun control push as well as the Sandy Hook mass shooting. That legislative push, launched in the wake of the Connecticut shooting, fizzled last month after the Senate blocked a bill that would have expanded background checks.
The poll showed 50 percent of voters still believe Congress should pass laws to protect the public from gun violence, while 39 percent say the opposite. But there is a huge partisan divide. Among Republicans, 65 percent don't see new laws as necessary.
And the survey could help explain why applications for gun permits have hit record highs and retailers report ammo has been flying off the shelves. Not only are gun owners worried about new gun laws, but the poll suggests some voters think a revolution could be on the horizon.
Asked whether an armed revolution might soon be necessary to protect liberties, 29 percent said yes.
Another 47 percent said no, while the rest were either unsure or declined to answer.
Of those who said yes, 44 percent were Republicans. Most of those who said yes also did not support more gun control legislation.
The poll of 863 registered voters was conducted April 22-28. It had a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points.

Click to read the poll

Roaches, Mosquitoes, and Birds: The Coming Micro-Drone Revolution

2013-05-03T22:39:00.006-04:00

RutherfordInstitute

“[Drones are a] game-changing technology, akin to gunpowder, the steam engine, the atomic bomb—opening up possibilities that were fiction a generation earlier but also opening up perils that were unknown a generation ago.”—Peter Singer, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution

America will never be a “no drone zone.”
That must be acknowledged from the outset. There is too much money to be made on drones, for one, and too many special interest groups—from the defense sector to law enforcement to the so-called “research” groups that are in it for purely “academic” reasons—who have a vested interest in ensuring that drones are here to stay.
At one time, there was a small glimmer of hope that these aerial threats to privacy would not come home to roost, but that all ended when Barack Obama took office and made drones the cornerstone of his war efforts. By the time President Obama signed the FAA Reauthorization Act into law in 2012, there was no turning back. The FAA opened the door for drones, once confined to the battlefields over Iraq and Afghanistan, to be used domestically for a wide range of functions, both public and private, governmental and corporate. It is expected that at least 30,000 drones will occupy U.S. airspace by 2020, ushering in a $30 billion per year industry.
Those looking to the skies in search of Predator drones will be in for a surprise, however, because when the drones finally descend en masse on America, they will not be the massive aerial assault vehicles favored by the Obama administration in their overseas war efforts. Rather, the drones coming to a neighborhood near you will be small, some nano in size, capable of flying through city streets and buildings almost undetected, while hovering over cityscapes and public events for long periods of time, providing a means of 24/7 surveillance.
One type of drone sensor, the Gorgon Stare, can keep track of an area 2.5 miles across from 12 different angles. Another sensor system, ARGUS, can find an object that is only 6 inches long, from 20,000 feet up in the air. A drone equipped with this kind of technology could spy on an entire city at once. For example, police in California are about to begin using Qube drones, which are capable of hovering for 40 minutes at heights of about 400 ft. to conduct surveillance on targets as far as 1 kilometer away. Michael Downing, the LAPD deputy chief for counter-terrorism and special operations, envisions drones being flown over large-scale media events such as the Oscars, using them to surveil political protests, and flying them through buildings to track criminal suspects.
These micro-drones will be the face of surveillance and crowd control in the coming drone age.
Modeled after birds, insects, and other small animals, these small airborne surveillance devices can remain hidden in plain view while navigating spaces off limits to conventional aircraft. Able to take off and land anywhere, able to maneuver through city streets and hallways, and able to stop and turn on a dime, these micro-drones will still pack a lethal punch, equipped with an array of weapons and sensors, including tasers, bean-bag guns, “high-resolution video cameras, infrared sensors, license plate readers, [and] listening devices.”
You can rest assured, given the pace of technology and the fervor of the drone industry (and its investors), that the sky is the limit when it comes to the many uses (and abuses) for drones in America. The following is just a small sampling of what will be descending from the skies in the near future.
Cyborg drones. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has begun to develop a Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) for the manipulation of insects into “cyborgs.” Through genetic engineering, they are aiming to control the movement of insects and utilize them for surveillance purposes.
Dragonfly drone. First reportedly spotted in 2007 hovering over protesters at an anti-war rally in Washington, DC, it turns out that the government’s dragonfly drones are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to small aerial surveillance devices designed to mimic nature. Just a year later, the US Air Force “unveiled insect-sized spies ‘as tiny as bumblebees’ that could not be detected and would be able to fly into buildings to ‘photograph, record, and even attack insurgents and terrorists.’”
Hummingbird drone. Shaped like a bird, the “Nano Hummingbird” drone is negligibly larger than an actual hummingbird and fits in the palm of one’s hand. It flits around effortlessly, blending in with its surroundings. DARPA, the advanced research division of the Department of Defense, gets the credit for this biotic wonder.
Nano Quadrators. Similar to the hummingbird drone, these small, four-propellered nano quadrator drones, developed by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, operate based upon the flight dynamics of insects, enabling them to operate as a swarm. Using twenty drones, researchers demonstrated how, moving compactly as a unit, the drones were able to navigate obstacles, form complex patterns, and even execute a fluid figure eight arrangement.
Black Hornet Nano drone. Weighing in at roughly half an ounce and four inches long, comparable to a finch, the Black Hornet Nano helicopter drone was designed to capture and relay video and still images to remote users, and can fly even in windy conditions.
DASH Roachbot drone. Developed at UC Berkeley's PolyPEDAL Lab, DASH, a 10-centimeter long, 16-gram Dynamic Autonomous Sprawled Hexapod strives to mimic a cockroach’s speed and ability to remain covert and a gecko’s speed and agility. Trained to perform "rapid inversion" maneuvers that include dashing up to a ledge and then swinging itself around to end up underneath the ledge and upside-down, DASH is being trained to make rapid transitions between running and climbing.
Samarai drone. Lockheed Martin’s compact “Samarai” drone, inspired by the design of a maple seed, is capable of high speeds, low battery consumption, vertical movement, and swift ground deployment.
MicroBat drone. Additionally, CIT Group, Aerovironment, and UCLA have produced a “MicroBat” ornithopter; it was designed in part by zoologists who have attempted to make the MicroBat mimic the movement of birds and other flying animals.
Spy-butterfly drone. In 2012, Israel unveiled its new insect-inspired drone which they dubbed the “spy-butterfly” because of its two sizable wings. Weighing in at only 20g, this drone was developed for indoor surveillance, including public places such as “train stations and airport terminals—or office buildings.” The size and muted sound of the “virtually noiseless” machines makes them unnoticeable and therefore ideal for intelligence gathering. The spy-butterfly is so realistic that, when tested, “birds and flies tended to fall behind the device arranging into a flock.”
Switchblade drone. A more sinister example is the Switchblade, a small military drone intended to act as a kamikaze weapon. Weighing in at a mere six pounds and two feet in length, it flies effortlessly through urban environments before zeroing in on its target, a person, at which point it explodes, unceremoniously killing him or her.
Mosquito drone. More lethal than its real-life counterpart, the mosquito drone, while an engineering marvel, is also a privacy advocate’s nightmare with its potential to land on someone and use a needle-like-pincer to extract DNA from its victims or, alternatively, inject drugs or other foreign substances. As software engineer Alan Lovejoy notes:

Such a device could be controlled from a great distance and is equipped with a camera, microphone. It could land on you and then use its needle to take a DNA sample with the pain of a mosquito bite. Or it could inject a micro RFID tracking device under your skin. It could land on you and stay, so that you take it with you into your home. Or it could fly into a building through a window. There are well-funded research projects working on such devices with such capabilities.

Raven drone. Weighing in at 4 pounds, the RQ-11 Raven drone is not as small, nor is it as agile as its smaller counterparts, but with more than 19,000 out there already, it is the most common. Useful for seeing around corners and sending footage back to its handlers, the Raven resembles a rudimentary model airplane and crumbles like Legos upon landing.
With 63 active drone sites across the nation and 56 government agencies presently authorized to use drones, including 22 law enforcement agencies and 24 universities, drones are here to stay. Indeed, the cost of drones—underwritten by a $4 million Homeland Security program which encourages local law enforcement to adopt drone technology as quickly as possible—makes them an easy sell for most police departments. Moreover, while manned airplanes and helicopters can cost $600/hour to operate, a drone can be put in the sky for less than $25/hour. That doesn’t even begin to cover drone use by the private sector, which is already chomping at the bit at the prospect.
No matter what the future holds, however, we must ensure that Americans have a semblance of civil liberties protections against the drones. Given the courts’ leniency towards police, predicating drone use on a warrant requirement would provide little to no protection. Thus, the only hope rests with Congress and state legislatures that they would adopt legislation specifically prohibiting the federal government from using data recorded via police spy drones in criminal prosecutions, as well as preventing police agencies from utilizing drones outfitted with anti-personnel devices such as tasers and tear gas.
Either way, we’d better get ready. As Peter W. Singer, author of “Wired for War,” a book about military robotics, warns: “The debate over drones is like debating the merits of computers in 1979: They are here to stay, and the boom has barely begun. We are at the Wright Brothers Flier stage of this. There’s no stopping this technology. Anybody who thinks they can put this genie back in the box—that’s silliness.”

**********

Is Tamerlan Tsarnaev the New Lee Harvey Oswald?

2013-05-02T19:46:00.000-04:00

TrevorLoudon

The claim that the Russians somehow “warned” the U.S. about Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s radical Islamic connections has been accepted by most news organizations and commentators as established fact.
But while U.S. intelligence agencies have a lot to explain, the Russian security services have been treated with kid gloves and even as the “good guys” in this affair.
Russian media, including the English-language propaganda channel Russia Today (RT), have been insisting that the U.S. is to blame for the Boston bombings because vague “warnings” from Moscow were ignored.
It is reminiscent of when Lee Harvey Oswald, a pro-Castro Marxist who had traveled back and forth to Russia, assassinated President John F. Kennedy, and the Russian KGB promptly launched a disinformation campaign in the media blaming right-wingers in Dallas and the CIA for the murder. The Soviets—and the Cubans—were determined to obscure their links to the assassin.
The obvious question in this case is: If the Russian intelligence agencies were suspicious of the brother’s terror ties, why did they not arrest and imprison him?
The Moscow regime of Vladimir Putin, a former Soviet KGB officer, rules with an iron fist and has supposedly been waging a vicious war against Muslim terrorists within its own borders. So why would they let a suspected terrorist from America come and go at will? And why, if Tamerlan Tsarnaev had a grudge against the Russians over their handling of those Muslim regions in Russia, did he attack the U.S. and not Russia?
There is something about the Russian angle that doesn’t add up.
The claim about Russian “warnings” to the U.S. ignores the sensational evidence uncovered in the 2007 book, Blowing Up Russia, that the Russian security forces are behind much of the Islamic terrorism that supposedly originates in the Muslim regions of Russia. The book was “banned in Russia,” where journalists investigating the Kremlin get threatened or even murdered.
The book’s co-author, Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian intelligence agent, not only blamed Moscow for Islamic terrorism, but said that al-Qaeda terrorist leader Ayman al-Zawahiri had been trained by the KGB and was an agent of the Russian security services. Litvinenko died in 2006 in London, where he had fled from the Russian regime, as a result of being poisoned by Russian intelligence on the orders of Russian President Putin. A film, “Poisoned by Polonium,” examines how the highly radioactive substance Polonium was used to kill him.
He gave an interview to a Polish newspaper in 2006 and said, “The bloodiest terrorists in the world were or are agents of the KGB-FSB.” The FSB is Russian’s Federal Security Service, a successor to the KGB.
“I can definitely say that the center of global terrorism is not in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan or the Chechen Republic,” he said. “The terrorist infection is spread worldwide from Lubyanka Square and the Kremlin cabinet.”
In other words, the Soviet-sponsored international terror networks of the 1980s did not go away, despite the collapse of the Soviet economic system.
In the U.S., after the Boston bombings, radio talk-show host Alex Jones made headlines by claiming that the attacks were a “false flag” intelligence operation staged by the U.S. Government, so that the bombings could be blamed on Islamists and the “war on terror” could expand at home and abroad.
But what if there were a Russian government hand in the bombings? What if Tamerlan Tsarnaev were a Russian agent?
The FBI says that it “reviewed its records and determined that in early 2011, a foreign government [Russia] asked the FBI for information about Tamerlan Tsarnaev.” The FBI says, “The request stated that it was based on information that he was a follower of radical Islam and a strong believer, and that he had changed drastically since 2010 as he prepared to leave the United States for travel to the country’s region to join unspecified underground groups.”
The statement said, “The FBI requested but did not receive more specific or additional information from the foreign government.”
It now appears, however, that the Russians had far more “information” about Tsarnaev than the FBI had. It looks like they did not share that information but were trying to determine what, if anything, the FBI and CIA knew about him.
The request was made before his reported trip to Russia in 2012. Yet Russia apparently already knew by then that he was “a follower of radical Islam and a strong believer” and wanted to join “underground groups.” How did Russia know this? We have since been told by the media that Russian “authorities” have turned over wire taps from 2011 of the Tsarnaev family talking to the older brother.
If the Russians had clean hands they would not be resorting to sensational claims about his travels and contacts in Russia, such as the report on the Russia Today (RT) propaganda channel that he was then under the control of the FBI. This appears to be the real “false flag” campaign.
Consider the report in the Russian government newspaper, Izvestia, that Tamerlan Tsarnaev attended “seminars” organized in Georgia, the former Soviet republic, by the U.S.-based Jamestown Foundation, where he was “recruited and trained in staging terrorist acts” against Russia.
The Jamestown Foundation “categorically rejects the content and premise” of the Izvestia report, the think tank said in a statement. “The story presented in the Izvestia article is entirely false and groundless. Our organization has never had any contact with the Tsarnaev brothers, and we have no record or knowledge of either of them ever attending any Jamestown event in Washington, DC, or elsewhere. Furthermore, Jamestown has never hosted any seminars to train terrorists or subversive agents.”
Significantly, the Jamestown Foundation has published an article by Valery Dzutsev, drawing attention to the sympathetic coverage of the parents of the Tsarnaev brothers by official Russian media. He writes, “On April 28, one of the country’s major TV channels, NTV, featured an interview with the mother of suspects, Zubeidat Tsarnaev, in which she again insisted that her sons had been ‘framed.’ The substantive part of the interview revealed little that was new, but what was interesting was the very fact that she was featured on a major Russian TV channel. This is normally not the way relatives of suspected terrorists are treated in Russia.”
To the contrary, he notes, “Russian media are threatened by the law against ‘propagating terrorism,’ and featuring a suspected terrorist’s mother would count as such an act.”
The article goes on to say, “If the Russian security services had prior information about Tamerlan’s attempt to join the North Caucasian insurgency, then they surely cannot trust his parents. Yet the Russian security services appear to be courting the parents instead of persecuting them. Zubeidat and Anzor Tsarnaev reportedly left Dagestan for Moscow. While in Dagestan, the police protected Anzor Tsarnaev from excessive contacts with journalists. This level of protection for someone whose sons are accused of terrorist activities, not only abroad, but also domestically, is highly unusual in Russia.”
In another example of this approach, Russia Today (RT) has featured an interview with a “journalist” by the name of Assed Baig, who specializes in writing about “anti-Muslim violence” perpetrated by the U.S. and other countries. He tells RT that U.S. authorities “thought that the Tsarnaevs were only a threat to Russia, not the U.S.” In other words, the allegation is that Tsarnaev was possibly an American agent. This comports nicely with the claims made by Alex Jones, who has gone to Russia’s defense in the past, such as when Moscow invaded Georgia and blamed the West for allegedly interfering in that former Soviet region. Jones has been a frequent guest on RT.
Soon after the bombings, an RT “team” flew to Dagestan, with the obvious permission of Kremlin authorities, to speak to Tsarnaevs’ parents and neighbors. While airing claims that the FBI was in control of Tsarnaev, even while he was traveling in Russia, RT has conspicuously failed to investigate what exactly Moscow knew about his time there and his “underground” connections. This subject is out of bounds for the Kremlin-funded “news” channel, which never investigates the activities of the Russian security services.
However, in an article, “How Vladimir Putin Could Help Boston,” left-wing writer Fred Kaplan stumbled on the truth, writing, “Russian intelligence services are all over Chechen radicals. That means that if—and this is a very big if—the Tsarnaevs had ever been in touch with Chechen radicals or with Islamists elsewhere who have ever been in touch with Chechen radicals, then Putin’s spy agencies have a record of it.”
The FBI has a lot to answer for in its handling of this terrorist, as he traveled to and from Russia, but Moscow knows more about Tsarnaev than Putin is telling us.
It seems incredible that a Russian agent would organize the bombing of a sporting event in Boston, with the inevitable negative fallout that would result from revelations about a Russian connection. Former KGB officer Konstantin Preobrazhensky told me that Russian involvement in the Boston bombings would be extremely counter-productive for Moscow, and would jeopardize and risk exposure for other Russian intelligence operations in the U.S.
On the other hand, the Russian media are acting as if Moscow is guilty of some role in the terror attacks, and that the world’s attention must therefore be diverted elsewhere.
As Dzutsev puts it, “The Russian security services’ gradual leaking of information invites more questions than it answers.Much more information will have to be released in order to understand why the Tsarnaev brothers turned so violent in Boston.”
One thing is certain: Obama has used the attacks to seek closer cooperation with the Putin regime.
At his news conference on Tuesday, Obama said, “The Russians have been very cooperative with us since the Boston bombing. Obviously, old habits die hard; there are still suspicions sometimes between our intelligence and law enforcement agencies that date back 10, 20, 30 years, back to the Cold War. But they’re continually improving. I’ve spoken to President Putin directly. He’s committed to working with me to make sure that those who report to us are cooperating fully in not only this investigation, but how do we work on counterterrorism issues generally.”
It looks like Obama is satisfied with the propaganda coming from Moscow.
Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigativ