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TSA screenings aren't just for airports anymore Three federal air marshals in bulletproof vests and two officers trained to spot suspicious behavior watched closely as Seiko, a German shepherd, nosed Vetter's trousers for chemical traces of a bomb. Radiation detectors carried by the marshals scanned the 57-year-old lawyer for concealed nuclear materials. When Seiko indicated a scent, his handler, Julian Swaringen, asked Vetter whether he had pets at home in Garner, N.C. Two mutts, Vetter replied. "You can go ahead," Swaringen said. The Transportation Security Administration isn't just in airports
anymore. TSA teams are increasingly conducting searches and screenings
at train stations, subways, ferry terminals and other mass transit locations
around the country. More
Tweeting the word 'drill' could mean your Twitter account is read by U.S. government spies Simply using a word or phrase from the DHS's 'watch' list could mean that spies from the government read your posts, investigate your account, and attempt to identify you from it, acccording to an online privacy group. The words which attract attention range from ones seemingly related to diseases or bioweapons such as 'human to animal' and 'outbreak' to other, more obscure words such as 'drill' and 'strain'. The DHS also watches for words such as 'illegal immigrant'. The DHS outlined plans to scans blogs, Twitter and Facebook for words such as 'illegal immigrant', 'outbreak', 'drill', 'strain', 'virus', 'recovery', 'deaths', 'collapse', 'human to animal' and 'trojan', according to an 'impact asssessment' document filed by the agency. When its search tools net an account using the phrases, they record
personal information. It's still not clear how this information is used
- and who the DHS shares it with. More
Payroll tax cut may hurt housing market That fee arrangement also makes it difficult for Congress to work on efforts to shut down Fannie and Freddie, which federal regulators seized three years ago with a taxpayer bailout now estimated to total about $150 billion. Based on prevailing rates for a 30-year fixed-rate loan, a homeowner borrowing $200,000 would pay about $4,000 more if the loan were sold to Fannie or Freddie. That would raise the mortgage payment about $11 a month for the life of the loan. "Housing doesn't need any more speed bumps, and this is a speed bump,"
said Jaret Seiberg, senior financial policy analyst at Guggenheim Partners
in Washington. "It's not a big one, but every extra penny that it costs
to finance a home puts that much more downward pressure on home prices."
More
Military given go-ahead to detain US terrorist suspects without trial Human rights groups accused the president of deserting his principles and disregarding the long-established principle that the military is not used in domestic policing. The legislation has also been strongly criticised by libertarians on the right angered at the stripping of individual rights for the duration of "a war that appears to have no end". The law, contained in the defence authorisation bill that funds the US military, effectively extends the battlefield in the "war on terror" to the US and applies the established principle that combatants in any war are subject to military detention. The legislation's supporters in Congress say it simply codifies existing
practice, such as the indefinite detention of alleged terrorists at
Guantánamo Bay. But the law's critics describe it as a draconian piece
of legislation that extends the reach of detention without trial to
include US citizens arrested in their own country. More
Mass. fishermen snare 881-pound tuna, feds take it But the joy was short-lived. Federal fishery enforcement agents seized the fish when the crew returned to port Nov. 12. Rafael had tuna permits but was told catching tuna with a net is illegal. Instead, it's got to be caught by handgear, such as rod and reel, harpoon or handline. "We didn't try to hide anything," Rafael told The Standard-Times newspaper of New Bedford, a famous whaling era port 50 miles south of Boston. "We did everything by the book. Nobody ever told me we couldn't catch it with a net." A fish that big is hugely valuable, prized by sushi-lovers for its tender red meat. A 754 pound tuna recently sold for nearly $396,000. Rafael's fish will be sold overseas, and he'll get no share of the
proceeds if regulators find a violation. The money would instead go
into the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration fund that also
holds money collected for fishery fines. More
Harold Rodman, TSA worker, arrested for sexual assault The suspect, Harold Glen Rodman, 52, allegedly was wearing his uniform and displayed a badge to the victim, a 37-year-old woman. Police arrested Rodman on Nov. 20. He is charged with aggravated sexual battery, object sexual penetration, forcible sodomy and abduction with intent to defile. A TSA spokesperson confirmed that Rodman works for the agency but wouldn’t say in what capacity or where. Police said the victim reported that she and a friend were in the
10500 block of Winfield Loop in Manassas when the suspect approached
them. The suspect flashed a badge and sexually assaulted the victim
before fleeing on foot, police said. More
Sweden slides into becoming a police state News of these developments does not sit well in the homeschool community. “The United States Supreme Court has called the termination of parental rights the family court equivalent of the death penalty,” notes Michael Donnelly, Director of International Relations at the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). Seven-year-old Domenic Johansson was snatched by Swedish police in
June 2009 from an airplane bound for India, his Mother’s homeland. Among
the reasons given for the seizure was that Domenic was homeschooled.
Since then his entire family has been denied virtually any contact with
their son. HSLDA and the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) filed a joint application
on behalf of the Johansson family at the European Court of Human Rights
(ECHR) in June 2010 and have been working to support the family since
shortly after Domenic’s seizure. More
TX High School Students Made to Recite Mexican National Anthem, Pledge It happened last month in an intermediate Spanish class at Achieve Early College High School in McAllen, Texas — a city located about 10 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. Wearing red, white and green, students had to memorize the Mexican anthem and pledge and stand up and recite them in individually in front of the class. That didn’t go over well with sophomore Brenda Brinsdon. The 15-year-old sat down and refused to participate. “I just thought it was out of hand, I didn’t think it was right,”
she told The Blaze. “Reciting pledges to Mexico and being loyal to it
has nothing to do with learning Spanish.” More
Pregnant Seattle protester miscarries after being kicked, pepper sprayed Jennifer Fox, 19, told The Stranger that she had been with the Occupy protests since they started in Westlake Park. She said she was homeless and three months pregnant, but felt the need to join activists during their march last Tuesday. “I was standing in the middle of the crowd when the police started moving in,” Fox recalled. “I was screaming, ‘I am pregnant, I am pregnant. Let me through. I am trying to get out.’” She claimed that police hit her in the stomach twice before pepper spraying her. One officer struck her with his foot and another pushed his bicycle into her. It wasn’t clear if either of those incidents were intentional. “Right before I turned, both cops lifted their pepper spray and sprayed
me. My eyes puffed up and my eyes swelled shut,” Fox said. More
Drug Smugglers Tunnel Into Arizona Parking Spaces In the latest innovation uncovered by law enforcement, smugglers in the border town of Nogales, Arizona were bringing drugs into the U.S. for the cost of a quarter. The parking meters on International Street, which hugs the border fence in Nogales, cost 25 cents. Smugglers in Mexico tunneled under the fence and under the metered parking spaces, and then carefully cut neat rectangles out of the pavement. Their confederates on the U.S. side would park false-bottomed vehicles in the spaces above the holes, feed the meters, and then wait while the underground smugglers stuffed their cars full of drugs from below. When the exchange was finished, the smugglers would use jacks to put
the pavement "plugs" back into place. The car would drive away, and
only those observers who were looking closely would notice the seams
in the street. More
Arrest marks growing pains for superhero movement Just then, in swooped a bizarre sight: a self-proclaimed superhero in a black mask and matching muscle-suit. He doused the aggressor with pepper spray, much to Heuring's shocked relief. A couple hours later, though, the superhero ended up in jail for investigation of assault after using those tactics on another group of clubgoers, sending pangs of anxiety through the small, eccentric and mostly anonymous community of masked crime-fighters across the U.S. The comic book-inspired patrolling of city streets by "real life super-heroes" has been getting more popular in recent years, thanks largely to mainstream attention in movies like last year's "Kick-Ass" and the recent HBO documentary "Superheroes." And as the ranks of the masked, caped and sometimes bullet-proof-vested avengers swell, many fret that even well-intentioned vigilantes risk hurting themselves, the public and the movement if they're as aggressive as the crime-fighter in Seattle. Some have gone so far as to propose a sanctioning body to ensure that
high super-hero standards are maintained. More
Police 'threatened' me for taking pictures of daughter in shopping centre, dad claims Chris White was pulled up by a security guard and police were called after he snapped his four-year-old daughter Hazel on his phone in Braehead shopping centre, near Glasgow. Chris was asked to delete the photos and banned from the mall. Police also warned him they could confiscate his phone under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. He said yesterday: "I just couldn't believe what was happening to me." Chris, 45, took the snap of Hazel as she sat at an ice cream stall in Braehead. Later, when he was carrying her through the centre, he was stopped by a security guard. Chris added: "He said I had been spotted taking photos in the shopping
centre which was illegal and then asked me to delete any photos I had
taken. More
Breast cancer patient: TSA pat-down was ‘humiliating’ Lori Dorn, a human resources consultant, recounted the experience on her blog, describing how, last Thursday, Sept. 29, she walked through an imaging scanner at Terminal 4 when a TSA agent asked her to step aside to have her breast examined. "I explained to the agent that I was a breast cancer patient and had a bilateral mastectomy in April and had tissue expanders put in to make way for reconstruction at a later date," Dorn wrote. Dorn told the agent she was not comfortable having her breasts touched
and explained that she had a medical card in her wallet that described
such expanders and included her doctor's contact information. She asked
the agent if she could retrieve the card. More
China used prisoners in lucrative internet gaming work Liu says he was one of scores of prisoners forced to play online games to build up credits that prison guards would then trade for real money. The 54-year-old, a former prison guard who was jailed for three years in 2004 for "illegally petitioning" the central government about corruption in his hometown, reckons the operation was even more lucrative than the physical labour that prisoners were also forced to do. "Prison bosses made more money forcing inmates to play games than
they do forcing people to do manual labour," Liu told the Guardian.
"There were 300 prisoners forced to play games. We worked 12-hour shifts
in the camp. I heard them say they could earn 5,000-6,000rmb [£470-570]
a day. We didn't see any of the money. The computers were never turned
off." More
Child labor returns to USA "It's kind of a common sense thing," she tells The Huffington Post. "Right now, it's so over the top with regulations -- what businesses have to do, schools have to do. Parents should be in charge, deciding on the work ethic of their children." Cunningham says that children are still protected by law from working
in "dangerous jobs, like coal mines, with animals, with blades or involving
dangerous stunts." She says that her bill simply loosens an overly broad
prohibition on child labor and would allow kids to work at movie theaters,
to babysit or to cut lawns, blaming the hysteria on union "misinformation"
and politics. More
Why Do the Police Have Tanks? The Strange and Dangerous Militarization of the US Police Force The police were there to apprehend a man suspected of murdering a teenage boy days earlier. The man they were after lived in the unit above the girl's family. The shooting death of Aiyana Mo'Nay Stanley-Jones sounds like it happened in a war zone. But the tragic SWAT team raid took place in Detroit. Shockingly, paramilitary raids that mirror the tactics of US soldiers
in combat are not uncommon in America. According to an investigation
carried out by the Huffington Post's Radley Balko, America has seen
a disturbing militarization of its civilian law enforcement over the
last 30 years, along with a dramatic and unsettling rise in the use
of paramilitary police units for routine police work. In fact, the most
common use of SWAT teams today is to serve narcotics warrants, usually
with forced, unannounced entry into the home. More
Homeowner associations foreclose on residents But that was Inlet House before the rats started chewing through the toilet seats in vacant units and sewage started seeping from the ceiling. Before condos that were worth $79,000 four years ago sold for as little as $3,000. And before the homeowners' association levied $6,000 assessments on everyone — and then foreclosed on seniors who couldn't pay the association bill, even if they didn't owe the bank a dime. Normally, it's the bankers who go after delinquent homeowners. But
in communities governed by the mighty homeowners' association, as the
sour economy leaves more people unable to pay their fees, it's neighbor
vs. neighbor. More
US universities in Africa 'land grab' Researchers say foreign investors are profiting from "land grabs" that often fail to deliver the promised benefits of jobs and economic development, and can lead to environmental and social problems in the poorest countries in the world. The new report on land acquisitions in seven African countries suggests
that Harvard, Vanderbilt and many other US colleges with large endowment
funds have invested heavily in African land in the past few years. Much
of the money is said to be channelled through London-based Emergent
asset management, which runs one of Africa's largest land acquisition
funds, run by former JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs currency dealers. More
Solar-Panel Company Visited by Obama in 2010 Suspends Operation The closely held company will seek Chapter 11 protection, Fremont, California-based Solyndra said today in a statement. It didn’t say how much it owes to creditors. Solyndra is the third U.S. solar manufacturer to fail in a month as falling panel prices and weak global demand are driving a wave of industry consolidation. President Obama visited Solyndra’s factory in May 2010 to promote investments in renewable energy and its closure will provide fuel to critics of his policies. “Solyndra could not achieve full-scale operations rapidly enough to
compete in the near term with the resources of larger foreign manufacturers,”
the company said in the statement. Its problems were exacerbated by
a global glut of solar panels and slowing demand “that in part resulted
from uncertainty in governmental incentive programs in Europe.” More
Costco uses E-Verify Nationwide to Check Employees Costco posts the official E-Verify poster (left) inside all their stores near the Member Services counter to warn any illegal aliens thinking of applying for a job there that will be rejected. They also clearly announce their nationwide participation in E-Verify on the employment page on their website. Sam’s Club, the nation’s second largest big box store, does not use E-Verify in their hiring practices. Sam’s Club is owned by Walmart and has 33 stores in California. After Arizona passed their mandatory E-Verify law several years ago,
which requires all employers in that state to check their new employees
through the Homeland Security database, Costco decided to be pro-active
and adopt the system at all their stores and offices nationwide. More
Grisly US Gov't Testing On Humans Revealed Much of this horrific history is 40 to 80 years old, but it is the backdrop for a meeting in Washington this week by a presidential bioethics commission. The meeting was triggered by the government's apology last fall for federal doctors infecting prisoners and mental patients in Guatemala with syphilis 65 years ago. U.S. officials also acknowledged there had been dozens of similar experiments in the United States - studies that often involved making healthy people sick. An exhaustive review by The Associated Press of medical journal reports and decades-old press clippings found more than 40 such studies. At best, these were a search for lifesaving treatments; at worst,
some amounted to curiosity-satisfying experiments that hurt people but
provided no useful results. More
Iraqis: We won't repay U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican from California, suggested during a trip to Baghdad with fellow lawmakers Friday that once Iraq becomes a rich and prosperous country, it could repay the United States. That comment triggered outrage among an Iraqi public and political establishment that had little or no say in the U.S.-led invasion of 2003. Iraqis are largely glad to be rid of Saddam Hussein but blame the U.S. for the chaos and sectarian violence that followed the invasion. “We as a government reject such statements, and we have informed the
American embassy that these congressmen are not welcome in Iraq,” said
government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh. More
TSA Agent Caught With Passenger's iPad in His Pants The Broward Sheriff's Office says 30-year-old Nelson Santiago stole around $50,000 worth of electronics over the past six months from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport's Terminal 1. Santiago -- a TSA officer since 2009 -- was caught earlier this week by a Continental Airlines employee taking an iPad out of someone's luggage and stuffing it into his pants, the cops say. After being arrested Monday on two counts of grand theft, police say
Santiago admitted to stealing computers, GPS devices, video cameras,
and other electronic merchandise from luggage he was supposed to be
screening. More
Congress prepares repressive Internet legislation The letter comes from three “law professors who teach and write about intellectual property law” and urges Congress to reject the Act, which is currently on hold in the Senate after Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) put a freeze on it back in May. The Protect IP Act, if approved, would give the government the power to take websites offline and censor search engines after copyright infringement claims are made by the content in question’s actual owner. Last month screenwriters stood up for the bill, speaking in front of Congress about what the passing would mean to them. "There's a popular misconception that when you steal content, you’re
only stealing from rich corporations who don’t need the money," said
Gina Gionfriddo, a television writer and member of the Writers Guild
of America. "But Internet piracy really takes income out of my pocket,
out of the pockets of actors, writers, directors and technicians who
create these programs." More
US troops protect China's copper mine in Afghanistan U.S. troops set up bases last month along a dirt track that a Chinese firm is paving as part of a $3 billion project to gain access to the Aynak copper reserves. Some troops made camp outside a compound built for the Chinese road crews, who are about to return from winter break. American forces also have expanded their presence in neighboring Logar province, where the Aynak deposit is. The U.S. deployment wasn't intended to protect the Chinese investment
— the largest in Afghanistan's history — but to strangle Taliban infiltration
into the capital of Kabul. But if the mission provides the security
that a project to revive Afghanistan's economy needs, the synergy will
be welcome. More
Smugglers Turn To Ultralights To Drop Drugs Over Border "They get frustrated, so they end up resorting to different methods of smuggling and the use of this ultralight aircraft is one of those methods," said Border Patrol Agent Rodolfo Zuniga. The U.S. Border Patrol said it has seen an increase in air smuggling in the last three years. In 2009, it tracked 118 ultralight incursions into the U.S.; 228 in 2010; and 71 so far in 2011. The San Diego Ultralight Association is stationed at Nichols Airfield
just east of Chula Vista, and members there said they have known about
the cartels' use of ultralights for some time. More
Teaching Kids to Mistrust Government Makes Couple ‘Unsuitable’ Parents That startling claim, leveled by officers in Child Protective Services documents detailing an investigation into an Austin-area activist couple, should be enough to give reason for pause to any staunch conservative in the state. The allegation was made against drug reform activist filmmakers Barry and Candi Cooper, whose home was recently raided and searched after the Williamson County Sheriff’s Department claimed Barry’s voice was heard in the background audio of an allegedly false police report. Once in the couple’s home, officers discovered a small amount of marijuana
and charged the Coopers with Class B misdemeanors, resulting in both
their arrests. Each immediately bonded out of jail and paid a small
fine. Days later, while Candi’s youngest son was visiting his father
in east Texas, Child Protective Services contacted the Coopers, revealing
that the incident could cost them not only custody of the boy, but also
their freedom on felony child endangerment charges. More
Deadly NATO raid hits Libyan university Libyan state television says dozens of others were also injured. The UN Security Council Resolution 1973 has authorized the enforcement of a no-fly zone over Libya to protect civilians against forces loyal to Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi. NATO has carried out many airstrikes in accordance with the UN mandate. However, many civilians have been killed in the attacks. Meanwhile, clashes between revolutionary forces and Gaddafi loyalists
intensified on Sunday. At least seven people were killed in the town
of Dafniya, near the besieged city of Misratah, Khaled Abu Falgha of
Misrata's Hekma hospital said. More
Rental chain 'caught spying on customers at home Computer privacy experts said the firm has the right to equip its computers with software it can use to shut off the devices remotely if customers stop paying their bills, but they must be told if they're being monitored. "If I'm renting a computer ... then I have a right to know what the limitations are and I have a right to know if they're going to be collecting data from my computer," said Annie Anton, a professor and computer privacy expert with North Carolina State University. But the couple who sued Atlanta-based Aaron's Inc. said they had no clue the computer they rented last year was equipped with a device that could spy on them. Brian Byrd, 26, and his wife, Crystal, 24, said they didn't even realize
that was possible until a store manager in Casper came to their home
on Dec. 22. More
Meet the Department of Education's SWAT team Wright came downstairs in his boxer shorts as a SWAT team breached his front door. Wright said an officer grabbed him by the neck and led him outside on his front lawn. “He had his knee on my back and I had no idea why they were there,” Wright said. According to Wright, officers also woke his three young children ages 3, 7, and 11 and put them in a Stockton police patrol car with him. Officers then searched his house. As it turned out, law enforcement were there looking for Wright’s estranged wife. “They put me in handcuffs in that hot patrol car for six hours, traumatizing
my kids,” Wright said. Wright said he later went to the mayor and Stockton
Police Department, but the City of Stockton had nothing to do with Wright’s
search warrant. More
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s Financial Martial Law on Poor Cities Last week, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder signed the Local Government and School District Fiscal Accountability Act. Now he can declare any city or district in financial emergency, appoint an emergency manager (at county, city, district or township level) and give that person the power to control budgets, sell off assets, bypass city councils and boards of education, take over school systems, de-certify public unions, and even to dissolve the city itself as an entity. This is corporate martial law—it won’t be the military taking over, but business interests that constitute an authoritarian regime. The idea is that the state will punish localities where incompetent
public officials and administrators are wasting money. This is the punishment
angle on the master narrative that Republican governors across the country
are taking up—“balancing the budget requires sacrifice.” Of course it
only requires sacrifice from the people who have already cut to the
bone. Simultaneously, Snyder, supposedly a moderate Republican, proposes
a state budget that includes a 60 percent cut in corporate taxes, along
with plans to tax pensions and kill the earned income tax credit. More
Witness releases new video of fatal police-involved shooting Meanwhile, a South Carolina man charged with DUI in a second officer-involved shooting that morning says he is innocent. On Thursday, The Miami Herald spoke to the couple that saw the end of the 4 a.m. police chase on Collins Avenue, then watched and filmed from just a few feet away as a dozen officers fired their guns repeatedly into Raymond Herisse’s blue Hyundai. They say the only reason they were able to show the video to a reporter is because they hid a memory card after police allegedly pointed guns at their heads, threw them to the ground and smashed the cell phone that took the video. The three-minute video captured on Narces Benoit’s HTC EVO phone begins as officers crowd around the east side of Herisse’s car with guns drawn. Roughly 15 seconds into the video, officers open fire. Benoit filmed the incident from the sidewalk on the northeast corner
of 13th Street and Collins Avenue, close enough to see some officers’
faces and individual muzzle flashes. More
Court: No right to resist illegal cop entry into home In a 3-2 decision, Justice Steven David writing for the court said if a police officer wants to enter a home for any reason or no reason at all, a homeowner cannot do anything to block the officer's entry. "We believe ... a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence," David said. "We also find that allowing resistance unnecessarily escalates the level of violence and therefore the risk of injuries to all parties involved without preventing the arrest." David said a person arrested following an unlawful entry by police still can be released on bail and has plenty of opportunities to protest the illegal entry through the court system. Justice Robert Rucker, a Gary native, and Justice Brent Dickson, a Hobart native, dissented from the ruling, saying the court's decision runs afoul of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. "In my view the majority sweeps with far too broad a brush by essentially
telling Indiana citizens that government agents may now enter their
homes illegally -- that is, without the necessity of a warrant, consent
or exigent circumstances," Rucker said. "I disagree." More
US says dropping bombs is not war, but guessing a computer password is The announcement came on the heels of a supposed cyber-attack that occurred a few weeks ago against defense contractor Lockheed Martin. Officials say when hacking incidents like this occur in the future, retaliation in the form of reverse cyber-attacks, economic sanctions, and even "military strike[s]" may take place. "A response to a cyber-incident or attack on the US would not necessarily
be a cyber-response," said Col. Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman. "All
appropriate options would be on the table." A White House statement
also said the US plans to "respond to hostile acts in cyberspace as
we would to any other threat to our country," implying that computer
hackers could soon face retaliatory attacks by the US military. More
Washable RFID Tags Help Catch Hotel Towel Thieves Irresistible as they may be, petty theft of these luxurious (and free!) linens are gouging the hotel industry to the rude wake-up call of approximately $100 million a year. Sticky-fingers everywhere, consider this a warning! Some hotels are reinforcing their defences against pilfering patrons like yourself and they're using radio frequency identification (RFID) to catch you in the act. Three hotels in Honolulu, Miami and New York City have begun using
towels, sheets and bathrobes equipped with washable RFID tags to keep
guests from snagging the coveted items. Just to keep you guessing, the
hotels have chosen to remain anonymous. More
Unabomber's Items in Auction The infamous manifesto, in which Ted Kaczynski condemned the industrial and technological revolutions, will be offered in an online government auction from May 18 through June 2, the U.S. Marshals Service said in a statement. The auction offering will include more than 20,000 pages of written
documents, including the original handwritten and typewritten versions
of the manifesto. Personal documents including Kaczynski's birth certificate,
photos, handwritten notes, driver's licenses, deeds, checks, academic
transcripts will also be up for auction. More
'Flo' wants to spy on you Now, Progressive is taking it further, offering drivers in Ohio, Kentucky, and 20 states a program called "Snapshot," that provides discounts up to 30 percent. There's one catch. You have to let Progressive install a gadget under your dash to monitor and transmit your driving habits. Company spokesman Richard Hutchinson told us, "This is a new approach
to auto insurance. It allows you the consumer to share your driving
to get a discount." More
WikiLeaks founder: Facebook is “most appalling spying machine ever invented” After Assange compared the differences between what is happening in Egypt and Libya, he was asked about the role of social networks such as Facebook. That’s when the WikiLeaks founder erupted: "Facebook, in particular, is the most appalling spying machine
that has ever been invented. Here we have the world’s most comprehensive
database about people, their relationships, their names, their addresses,
their locations, their communications with each other, their relatives,
all sitting within the United States, all accessible to US intelligence.
Facebook, Google, Yahoo – all these major US organizations have built-in
interfaces for US intelligence. It’s not a matter of serving a subpoena
– they have an interface that they have developed for US intelligence
to use." More
Report: 230,000 Displaced By Mexico's Drug War The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre based this week's report on studies by local researchers, saying that the Mexican government does not compile figures on people who have had to leave their homes because of turf battles between drug gangs. "Independent surveys put their number at around 230,000," according to the global report's section on Mexico. "An estimated half of those displaced crossed the border into the United States, which would leave about 115,000 people internally displaced, most likely in the States of Chihuahua, Durango, Coahuila and Veracruz." While that number is far below the estimated 3.6 to 5.2 million displaced
by decades of drug- and guerrilla-war violence in Colombia, the report
suggested that people who had to flee drug violence in Mexico have received
little support. More
Prisoners Help Build Patriot Missiles But what makes those eye-popping sums even more shocking is that some of the workers manufacturing parts for those Patriot missiles are prisoners, earning as little as 23 cents an hour. (Credit Justin Rohrlich with the catch.) The work is done by Unicor, previously known as Federal Prison Industries. It’s a government-owned corporation, established during the Depression, that employs about 20,000 inmates in 70 prisons to make everything from clothing to office furniture to solar panels to military electronics. One of the company’s high-tech specialties: Patriot missile parts.
“UNICOR/FPI supplies numerous electronic components and services for
guided missiles, including the Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) missile,”
Unicor’s website explains. “We assemble and distribute the Intermediate
Frequency Processor (IFP) for the PAC-3s seeker. The IFP receives and
filters radio-frequency signals that guide the missile toward its target.”
More
Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with United States Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US armed operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, to develop what is described as an "online persona management service" that will allow one US serviceman or woman to control up to 10 separate identities based all over the world. The project has been likened by web experts to China's attempts to control and restrict free speech on the internet. Critics are likely to complain that it will allow the US military to create a false consensus in online conversations, crowd out unwelcome opinions and smother commentaries or reports that do not correspond with its own objectives. The discovery that the US military is developing false online personalities
– known to users of social media as "sock puppets" – could also encourage
other governments, private companies and non-government organisations
to do the same. More
Young Mexican police chief seeks US asylum Marisol Valles Garcia, who was 20 when she was hired last October, made international headlines when she accepted the top law enforcement job in Praxedis G. Guerrero, a township near the Texas border overrun by drug violence. Her predecessor was shot to death in July 2009. Garcia is now in the U.S. and will be allowed to present her case to an immigration judge, according to a statement from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The town is in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, where ombudsman Gustavo de la Rosa confirmed that Garcia was in the U.S. and said she has initiated a formal asylum petition. Neither ICE nor De la Rosa would say where Garcia was staying, citing privacy and security concerns. Drug violence has transformed the township from a string of quiet farming
communities into a lawless no-man's-land only about a mile from the
Texas border. Between 1995 and 2005, it had a steady population of about
8,500 inhabitants. Five years later, slightly more than 4,500 people
live there. Two rival gangs - the Juarez and Sinaloa drug cartels -
are battling over control of its single highway, a lucrative drug-trafficking
route along the Texas border. More
The Deindustrialization Of America It was America that was at the forefront of the industrial revolution. It was America that showed the world how to mass produce everything from automobiles to televisions to airplanes. It was the great American manufacturing base that crushed Germany and Japan in World War II. But now we are witnessing the deindustrialization of America. Tens of thousands of factories have left the United States in the past decade alone. Millions upon millions of manufacturing jobs have been lost in the same time period. The United States has become a nation that consumes everything in
sight and yet produces increasingly little. Do you know what our biggest
export is today? Waste paper. Yes, trash is the number one thing that
we ship out to the rest of the world as we voraciously blow our money
on whatever the rest of the world wants to sell to us. More
US Army Apologizes for Horrific Photos from Afghanistan US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has already telephoned with her Afghan counterpart to discuss the situation. National Security Advisor Tom Donilon has likewise made contact with officials in Kabul. The case threatens to strain already fragile US-Afghan relations at a time when the two countries are negotiating over the establishment of permanent US military bases in Afghanistan. In a statement released by Colonel Thomas Collins, the US Army, which is currently preparing a court martial to try a total of 12 suspects in connection with the killings, apologized for the suffering the photos have caused. The actions depicted in the photos, the statement read, are "repugnant to us as human beings and contrary to the standards and values of the United States." The suspected perpetrators are part of a group of US soldiers accused
of several killings. Their court martials are expected to start soon.
The photos, the army statement said, stand "in stark contrast to the
discipline, professionalism and respect that have characterized our
soldiers' performance during nearly 10 years of sustained operations."
More
Canada, U.S. agree to use each other’s troops in civil emergencies Neither the Canadian government nor the Canadian Forces announced the new agreement, which was signed Feb. 14 in Texas. The U.S. military’s Northern Command, however, publicized the agreement with a statement outlining how its top officer, Gen. Gene Renuart, and Canadian Lt.-Gen. Marc Dumais, head of Canada Command, signed the plan, which allows the military from one nation to support the armed forces of the other nation during a civil emergency. The new agreement has been greeted with suspicion by the left wing in Canada and the right wing in the U.S. The left-leaning Council of Canadians, which is campaigning against
what it calls the increasing integration of the U.S. and Canadian militaries,
is raising concerns about the deal. More
|
Rick Vetter was rushing to board the Amtrak train in Charlotte, N.C.,
on a recent Sunday afternoon when a canine officer suddenly blocked
the way.
The Department of Homeland Security makes fake Twitter and Facebook
profiles for the specific purpose of scanning the networks for 'sensitive'
words - and tracking people who use them.
Reporting from Washington — The new mortgage fee to fund the temporary
extension of the payroll tax cut could damp the still-sluggish real
estate market and complicate efforts to overhaul the nation's wounded
housing finance system. Even though the tax cut approved Friday extends
for only two months, a small fee on loan amounts will be levied for
a decade on all mortgages sold to housing finance giants Fannie Mae
and Freddie Mac, which control about 60% of the nation's mortgage market.
Barack Obama has abandoned a commitment to veto a new security law that
allows the military to indefinitely detain without trial American terrorism
suspects arrested on US soil who could then be shipped to Guantánamo
Bay.
NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — It's the big one that got taken away. Local fishing
boat owner Carlos Rafael was elated when one of his trawlers snared
an 881-pound bluefin tuna earlier this month.
A Transportation Security Administration employee is accused of sexually
assaulting a woman in Manassas.
Swedish officials on the Island of Gotland are seeking to terminate
the parental rights of homeschool parents Christer and Annie Johansson.
The latest development in this monumental homeschool rights case started
when the state seized the parents seven year old son in June 2009. Domenic,
now 9 years old, has been held in state foster care for more than 24
months.
Students in a Texas public high school were made to stand up and recite
the Mexican national anthem and Mexican pledge of allegiance as part
of a Spanish class assignment, but the school district maintains there
was nothing wrong with the lesson.
A woman who was pepper sprayed during during a raid on Occupy Seattle
last week is blaming police after she miscarried Sunday.
Drug smugglers are endlessly creative when it comes to inventing ways
to move marijuana, cocaine and other contraband from Mexico into the
United States.
SEATTLE - Fabio Heuring was standing outside a Seattle nightclub on
a Saturday night and smoking cigarettes with a friend when a man bolting
from a bouncer ran into them. The enraged man ripped off his shirt in
the middle of the street and prepared to give Heuring's buddy a beating.
A DAD says he was threatened by police under anti-terror laws - for
taking a picture of his wee girl eating ice cream.
A New York breast cancer patient says she was subjected to an "insulting"
and "humiliating" pat-down by a TSA agent at Kennedy Airport last week
as she prepared to board a flight to San Francisco.
As a prisoner at the Jixi labour camp, Liu Dali would slog through tough
days breaking rocks and digging trenches in the open cast coalmines
of north-east China. By night, he would slay demons, battle goblins
and cast spells.
In a move that is raising plenty of eyebrows, Missouri state Senator
Jane Cunningham has proposed a bill that would "modify" child labor
laws, eliminating the prohibition on employment of children under 14.
The proposal has sparked an outcry in the state but Cunningham defends
the bill, saying that it's important to cultivate a work ethic in young
people and emphasizing that kids are still prohibited from working in
dangerous professions.
ust after midnight on May 16, 2010, a SWAT team threw a flash-bang grenade
through the window of a 25-year-old man while his 7-year-old daughter
slept on the couch as her grandmother watched television. The grenade
landed so close to the child that it burned her blanket. The SWAT team
leader then burst into the house and fired a single shot which struck
the child in the throat, killing her.
The Inlet House condo complex in Fort Pierce, Fla., was once the kind
of place the 55-and-older set aspired to. It was affordable. The pool
and clubhouse were tidy, the lawns freshly snipped. Residents, push-carts
in tow, walked to the beach, the bank, the beauty parlor, the cinema
and the supermarket. In post-crash America, this was a dreamy little
spot. Especially on a fixed income.
Harvard
and other major American universities are working through British hedge
funds and European financial speculators to buy or lease vast areas
of African farmland in deals, some of which may force many thousands
of people off their land, according to a new study.
Solyndra
Inc., a maker of solar modules that received a $535 million loan guarantee
from the U.S. Energy Department, suspended operations and plans to file
for bankruptcy, saying it couldn’t compete with larger rivals.
Costco
Wholesale, the nation’s largest warehouse retailer, has adopted the
use of E-Verify to check all prospective new hires. The multi-billion
dollar global chain has been using the free government online verification
system nationwide since March 2010.
ATLANTA
-- Shocking as it may seem, U.S. government doctors once thought it
was fine to experiment on disabled people and prison inmates. Such experiments
included giving hepatitis to mental patients in Connecticut, squirting
a pandemic flu virus up the noses of prisoners in Maryland, and injecting
cancer cells into chronically ill people at a New York hospital.
BAGHDAD
— The suggestion by a U.S. congressman that Iraq repay the United States
for the money it has spent in the country has stirred anger, with an
Iraqi lawmaker ridiculing the idea as “stupid” and others saying Iraqis
should be compensated for the hardships they’ve endured.
While
most Transportation Security Administration employees are busy groping
people or taking naked pictures of them, the cops say one of those employees
was putting fliers' electronics down his pants.
While some lawmakers are leaning towards a legislation that would cripple
the internet and give the government the power to wipe websites offline,
a group of professors have penned a letter to Congress protesting the
proposed Protect IP Act.
JALREZ VALLEY, Afghanistan — In this Taliban stronghold in the mountains
south of Kabul, the U.S. Army is providing the security that will enable
China to exploit one of the world's largest unexploited deposits of
copper, earn tens of billions of dollars and feed its voracious appetite
for raw materials.
SAN
DIEGO -- Mexican drug cartels have used trucks, tunnels, boats and submarines
to smuggle their drugs across the border. Now, more and more, authorities
said they're turning to ultralight aircraft to do the job.
Texans, beware: If you teach your kids that the “government is out to
harm them,” police in Williamson County might just deem you an “unsuitable”
parent.
New
images have emerged showing the aftermath of an alleged NATO air raid
targeting Tripoli's Nasser University. The attack reportedly left many
university staff and students dead.
PITTSBURGH
— A major furniture rental chain provides its customers with computers
that allow it to track keystrokes, take screenshots and even snap webcam
pictures of renters using the devices at home, a Wyoming couple said
in a lawsuit.
Kenneth
Wright does not have a criminal record and he had no reason to believe
a SWAT team would be breaking down his door at 6 a.m. “I look out of
my window and I see 15 police officers,” Wright said.
My
friend Judith Browne-Dianis, who runs the Advancement Project, just
turned me on to this evil mechanism that allows governors to take over
local decision making. On the heels of Wisconsin’s move to strip public
employees of collective bargaining rights, Michigan has taken things
to the next level: stripping cities of self-governance.
A
West Palm Beach couple who filmed Monday morning’s deadly officer-involved
shooting on South Beach has accused officers of intimidation, destroying
evidence and twisting the facts in the chaos surrounding the Memorial
Day shootings – a charge that police officials say they know nothing
about.
INDIANAPOLIS
| Overturning a common law dating back to the English Magna Carta of
1215, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Hoosiers have no
right to resist unlawful police entry into their homes.
The
US government sure has an interesting way of defining war these days.
Just a few months after the Obama administration played word games with
the public by insisting that air strikes in Libya were just "kinetic
military action," not acts of war, the Pentagon has now come on the
record stating that it will treat all acts of cyber-hacking against
the US as "acts of war."
Plush terrycloth bathrobes, 800-thread-count sheets and fluffy, freshly
laundered towels can tempt even the most law-abiding hotel guest to
take up a life of suitcase-stuffing crime.
The
manifesto and other items belonging to the man known as the "Unabomber"
will soon be available for purchase, the government announced Thursday,
May 12, 2011.
You may have seen Progressive's TV ads promising big discounts for safe
driving. One commercial, featuring a perky spokeswoman named Flo, says
"are you a safe driver? Yes. Discount! Do you own a home? Yes. Discount!
Are you gonna buy online? Yes. Discount! Aren't discounts great? Yes!"
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange may be awaiting extradition to Sweden
on sexual assault charges but that doesn’t mean the media has lost interest
in what he has to say about various important issues. In a recent interview
with Russia Today, Assange was asked for his perspective on the revolutions
in the Middle East.
MEXICO
CITY -- About 230,000 people have been displaced in Mexico because of
drug violence, and about half of them may have taken refuge in the United
States, according to a new study.
This
spring, the United Arab Emirates is expected to close a deal for $7
billion dollars’ worth of American arms. Nearly half of the cash will
be spent on Patriot missiles, which cost as much as $5.9 million apiece.
The
US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate
social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet
conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.
EL
PASO, Texas — A young woman who received death threats after recently
becoming police chief of a violence-plagued Mexican town is in the U.S
and seeking asylum, Mexican and U.S. officials said Tuesday.
The
United States is rapidly becoming the very first "post-industrial" nation
on the globe. All great economic empires eventually become fat and lazy
and squander the great wealth that their forefathers have left them,
but the pace at which America is accomplishing this is absolutely amazing.
The
United States and NATO are concerned that reactions could be intense
to the publication of images documenting killings committed by US soldiers
in Afghanistan. The images appeared in the most recent edition of SPIEGEL,
which hit the newsstands on Monday.
Canada
and the U.S. have signed an agreement that paves the way for the militaries
from either nation to send troops across each other’s borders during
an emergency, but some are questioning why the Harper government has
kept silent on the deal.