TiLTNews Network: Earth Watch - Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference, not by safety. It is easy to clamor for government security when terrible things happen; but liberty is given true meaning when we support it without exception, and we will be safer for it ~ Dr. Ron Paul
Friday, May 16, 2014
Greenwald To Release Info on NSA Spying Targets
Greenwald To Release Info on NSA Spying Targets
By: Joshua Cook May 16, 20141
In an interview with Stephen Colbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald said there are still bombshells to be revealed about the National Security Agency’s spying.
“I genuinely believe that the story that is the biggest one and will have the biggest impact and will shape how the last 10 months are viewed by history is the story on which we’re currently working that will hopefully be ready within 4 to 8 weeks,” he said.
“One of the missing pieces is on whom is the NSA spying in America, who are they targeting and for what purpose. Who are these people that they view as sufficient threats that they read their e-mail. What’s the pattern of people. Are they political dissidents? Are they critics of U.S. foreign policy? Are they actual terrorists? And that’s the reporting that remains to be done,” he explained.
The piece like the rest of his articles related to the Edward Snowden leaks will be published in The Guardian newspaper.
Greenwald is also promoting his new book on the topic, entitled “No Place To Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA and the U.S. Surveillance State.”
In an excerpt published by The Guardian, Greenwald writes about the justification of spying: “A prime justification for surveillance – that it’s for the benefit of the population – relies on projecting a view of the world that divides citizens into categories of good people and bad people.”
He contends that the government has led the public to believe that its attention was focused on the “bad people,” but through the Snowden leaks that is simply not true.
“Collect it all, sniff it all, process it all, exploit it all. Not collect the communications of terrorists or just people doing bad things, but collect it all. They collect billions with a b of e-mails and cell phone calls every day,” explained Greenwald on “The Colbert Report.”
And logically, those all can’t be from Al-Queda.
The NSA’s focus on insane data collection should change, and it might. The House Judiciary Committee unanimously approved the USA Freedom Act, which would scale back the U.S. government’s domestic surveillance programs.
According to U.S. News & World Report, “If passed into law, the USA Freedom Act – as amended in committee – would allow the NSA to collect the phone records of individuals and two “hops” through their contacts if officials can convince a judge there’s reasonable suspicion a targeted individual is a terrorist. The bill would ban the government from invoking pen register or National Security Letter statutes to conduct bulk phone-record collection.”
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) said in a statement that the USA Freedom Act is a step in the right direction. But the proposed legislation does has its flaws.
“The USA FREEDOM Act includes a definition of call detail records which excludes cell site location data, a provision that will help safeguard the location privacy of millions of Americans from mass NSA surveillance. However, we remain concerned that the bill allows prospective collection—collection of records that have not yet been created—up to 180 days,” said the EFF.
The Center for Democracy & Technology wrote a letter calling out potential changes as well. (See letter PDF.) “While the bill makes significant progress in ending bulk collection, we strongly believe that several technical corrections and clarifications to the bill are required if Congress is to help ensure the bill language is not misinterpreted and its stated goal of ending bulk collection is met.”
The USA Freedom Act now goes to the House. And we wait and speculate for Greenwald’s next article. Watch Part 1 and Part 2 of Glenn Greenwald’s interview.
Joshua Cook
Joshua Cook is the acting Chairman for the Republican Liberty Caucus of South Carolina. Joshua Cook's articles have also been cited on sites such as InfoWars, Reason.com, WND.com, Breitbart.com, DailyCaller and FreedomOutPost.com. If you have any tips please email me at joshuacook@benswann.com. Like me on FB and follow me on Twitter.
Read Other Stories
- Clemency for Snowden? Greenwald calls out D.C. media in fiery debate – Video
- Plenty More NSA-Leaked Info to Come says Greenwald; Anti-NSA Bill with 117 Sponsors
- Federal Judge Rules NSA Spying IS Legal; Strange Ruling Cites Emotion, Sept 11. and Edward Snowden “Spawning Mischief”
- Obama Fumbles while NSA Insider/Review Board Member says “We Need More NSA Spying”
- The Most Dangerous Domestic Spying Program is Common Core
Read more: http://benswann.com/greenwald-to-release-info-on-nsa-spying-targets/#ixzz31vsQx759
Follow us: @BenSwann_ on Twitter
Truth Wins: The Benghazi Cover Up is Collapsing
Both President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton knew right away that the attack in Benghazi was a coordinated and planned terrorist attack, and not a protest spiraled out of control.
Yet, Hillary immediately began sending out tweetsblaming a little-seen Youtube video for the attack, which was a lie. Her “deputy”, former Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice spread the lie on the Sunday news shows, and the White House continued to perpetuate the lie for weeks afterwards, even until this day to an extent.
It has become blatantly obvious to a vast majority of people that the White House engaged in a deliberate coverup of the facts before, during and after the Benghazi attack. But that coverup may be crumbling now, especially in the face of the impending Benghazi Select Committee investigation.
With all of the evidence already discovered, and the potential for more information to be uncovered later, everybody now knows that Benghazi was a terrorist attack, and we know that the White House knew on September 11, 2012, too. (H/TBreitbart)
And yet in the post-Benghazi fallout, Obama continued to attack and blame free speech for the Benghazi slaughter. Obama, along with Hillary Clinton, starred in a paid advertisement condemning the video insulting Islam. These paid advertisements (funded with American taxpayer dollars) ran in Pakistan. This presidential attack on our freedom and our Constitution was the Obama administration’s primary response to the deadly Islamist attack on September 11, 2012.
In reviewing the cache of new documents just released as a result of Judicial Watch’s successful FOIA lawsuit, it is clear that there is more incriminating evidence of a cover-up than just the now-infamous “smoking gun” email from Ben Rhodes. Rhodes’ email is slam-dunk evidence of the White House’s lead role in the cover-up. The blaming of the YouTube video and the talking point lies that Susan Rice was to advance on the five Sunday shows were driven by the White House.
Many of the newly released documents contained large sections of redacted text, even thought the documents are unclassified, proving that the White House is still trying to cover up what they knew and when they knew it.
Still, some material extremely damaging to the administration is clear. In a memo from former Deputy Spokesman at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations Payton Knopf to Susan Rice and others, Knopf provides “Guidance on Events in Libya 9/12/12. (Today’s initial guidance from NSS and State).” In it, he gives a timeline (“the tick tock”) of events on that day and quotes the State Department’s Victoria Nuland as saying that “it was clearly a complex attack.”
In the same memo, Knopf discusses Obama’s “tick tock” during Benghazi. The president was made aware of the attack on the afternoon of September 11, 2012 “as he started his weekly meeting with the Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.” Ironically, only a day before the Benghazi jihad attacks, Marc Thiessen broke the story in the Washington Post that Obama had scaled back in-person daily intelligence briefings and had actually attended fewer than half of the daily intelligence briefings that had been held since he entered the White House.
But what’s salient here is that according to Benghazi transcripts of defense testimony, just minutes after the American consulate in Benghazi was attacked, senior defense officials, both civilian and military, were told that it was a “terrorist attack.” So why did the Obama White House promote a false narrative, and why didn’t defense officials speak out about this false claim?
Questions still remain about where Obama was during the night of the attack, and when was he notified of Ambassador Stevens’ death? There are conflicting reports that he was told at some point that night, while others say he was told first thing the next morning. Senior adviser Eric Pelofsky was informed about Stevens’ death by the Libyans in the evening, while Nuland claims nobody knew for sure until the morning.
I find it impossible to believe that the president of the United States was not notified immediately that night, while Pelofsky was writing about Stevens’s death, that our Ambassador had been taken from our embassy possibly still alive and then murdered. But Nuland clearly says he was notified the next morning.
If he was asleep at that time, they wouldn’t wake him for such momentous news? Why wasn’t he calling the shots? He’s the Commander-in-Chief – or had he by that time already given the stand down order? The American people need answers to such questions, and let the chips fall where they may – or bodies, in this case. Why are they covering up the point at which Obama was informed about Stevens’s death?
We also know that the State Department knew immediately that Ansar Al-Sharia, an Al-Qaeda affiliate, was claiming responsibility for the attack. Yet Obama and Hillary still didn’t call the attack a “terrorist attack”, and blamed the video for sparking a protest, when they knew otherwise.
And then there are questions about the “security” hired by the State Department to take the place of our real security that was cut by more than half in the weeks and months before the attack.
There is also proof that Rice was lying when she said that security on the ground was strong and significant. In an email at 4:49 PM on September 11th– 49 minutes after the attack began, according to the State Department’s own timeline – State’s Dan Fogarty advised several officials, including Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, Victoria Nuland, and others that the February 17 Brigade were responding to the attack on the mission [consulate] “engaging the attackers, taking fire, and working its way to the compound to get to the villa…”
The February 17 Revolution Brigade is a jihadist militia that is tied to the Muslim Brotherhood. It was repeatedly accused of engaging in atrocities during and after the Libyan Civil War. Yes, with the world’s largest, most technologically advanced, and best-armed military, the Obama administration and State Department outsourced their response to a jihadist group.
Back in September 2012, according to the Daily Beast, “the intelligence community had an intercept between a Libyan politician whose sympathies are with al Qaeda and the Libyan militia known as the February 17 Brigade – which had been charged with providing local security to the consulate. In the intercept, the Libyan politician apparently asks an officer in the brigade to have his men stand down for a pending attack – another piece of evidence implying the violence was planned in advance.” In other words, it wasn’t a spontaneous reaction to a video about Muhammad.
So, where was Obama during the night of the attack? We know that he wasn’t in the “situation room” monitoring the attack. When was he informed of Ambassador Stevens’ death? Why did they push the story about a protest and video when they had been informed otherwise? Why was no rescue attempt ever sent? Was a stand down order really given?
These are just some of the questions that Trey Gowdy will be asking as part of the Benghazi select Committee. Hopefully, he will able to uncover the truth with histeam of experienced prosecutors. The families deserve the truth, and the American people demand to know the truth.
The Detroit Model: Permanent Rule by the Banks...to Circumvent Public Voting
"What is happening in Detroit is a model for cities and states across the country..." Stand still little sheep, for you are to be shorn to the bone by your friendly state bankers. Not for Wall...
[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]Rule by the Banks...to Circumvent Public Voting
noreply@blogger.com (Charleston Voice)
Fri, 16 May 2014 18:26:54 GMT
Did Somebody Intentionally Set California Wildfires?
By ABC NEWS via Good Morning America
ABC US News | ABC Entertainment News
Calmer winds and cooler temperatures are aiding firefighters battling blazes in Southern California today, with arson being investigated as a possible cause.
But the fires continue to burn, with at least one person dead and more than 10,000 acres scorched. Conditions remain problematic, as the entire state is experiencing drought conditions, leaving dry brush to fuel the flames.
It’s unclear how many houses have been damaged. Investigators are still trying to figure out what caused the fires.
“We all have suspicions like the public does when we have nine fires that started all over the county,” San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore said. “We are actively investigating the start of those fires.”
A 19-year-old and 17-year-old were arrested Thursday, accused of starting a pair of smaller fires in Escondido. But authorities say those fires were quickly extinguished, and authorities don’t believe there is any connection to the larger fires that remain burning.
Firefighters found a body in a transient camp Thursday. The body was so badly burned that officials have been unable to make a positive identification.
Air and ground crews continue fighting the fires, trying to contain the flames. Jack Whitling’s aunt lost all her possessions in the fire. Her home had been in the family for nearly half a century.
“It’s just devastation. It’s irreplaceable, you know, when somebody grows up in a house,” Whitling said, looking at the destruction.
As the flames inched closer, he tried to save the home, but the smoke was too thick.
“It was too late,” he said. “It just jumped straight in and you couldn’t do nothing.”
AP Photo
PHOTO: Firefighters plan their attack as the brush fire flares up heading toward homes, May 15, 2014, in San Marcos, Calif.
Gregory Bull/AP Photo
PHOTO: A helicopter transporting water flies over trees, May 15, 2014, in Escondido, Calif.
Veronica Navarro and her mother, now evacuated, watched as homes across the street shot up in flames.
“The fire was actually really close, like I could feel the heat actually rub against my skin. It was really hot,” Navarro said.
Displaced residents such as Mari Ruiz are holding out hope that the flames won’t damage their homes.
“We’re sitting here waiting to see what happens, if we’re going to be able to go back and see if the houses are destroyed or not,” Ruiz said.
Gregory Bull/AP Photo
PHOTO: Fire engulfs a structure during a wildfire, May 15, 2014, in Escondido, Calif.
Did Somebody Intentionally Set California Wildfires?
TFAdmin
Fri, 16 May 2014 18:39:14 GMT
Tesla-Led Consortium to Build Massive Battery Factory
Via: San Jose Mercury News: Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk said Tuesday that Tesla will partner with several companies besides Panasonic for its planned “gigafactory” for battery production, painting a portrait of a facility resembling a massive industrial park and saying that there eventually will be a need for several more. Musk said that the […]
Tesla-Led Consortium to Build Massive Battery Factory
Kevin
Fri, 16 May 2014 17:12:38 GMT
Petitions to Remove FCC Chair And Restore Net Neutrality Entered
Petitions to Remove FCC Chair And Restore Net Neutrality Entered
Tens of thousands sign petitions concerned about the further corporatization of the Internet
Adan Salazar
Infowars.com
May 15, 2014
Citizens wary of government and corporate encroachment on Internet freedom have launched multiple White House petitions seeking equal treatment of all information and data stored on the web, with several petitions calling for the ouster of Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler.
Another petition argues for the removal of FCC boss Tom Wheeler for a supposed conflict of interest. “Before he became Chairman of the FCC, Tom Wheeler was a lobbyist for the cable and wireless industry, which the FCC is supposed to regulate. Not only is this a conflict of interest, Wheeler has repeatedly demonstrated that he is not working for the good of the American people,” a petitionstarted by J.D. Of Lufkin, Texas states.
Yesterday, the FCC voted to begin considering plans to allow “internet fast lanes,” which would essentially give cable providers (e.g. Time Warner, AT&T and Verizon) the ability to give preferential treatment to certain web services, such as Skype, Facebook and Netflix, based on premiums paid for high-speed delivery of their content.
Profits derived from the premiums, cable providers argue, are essential to begin upgrading existing Internet cable connections, which they say will ultimately benefit the consumer; however, many perceive it will have the opposite effect and lead to the regulation of the flow of information on the web and ultimately the “televisation” of the Internet.
“This new economy will undoubtedly result in less choice for consumers and lead to what may be termed the ‘televization’ of the internet. In other words large players like NBC and Disney will effectively monopolize the medium as they now do with cable and broadcast television,” Infowars reported yesterday.
The bill’s language is cleverly disguised as calling for an “Open Internet,” when it will actually do the opposite, and Wheeler’s apparently not above playing devil’s advocate, saying recently, “There is one Internet. It must be fast, it must be robust, and it must be open.. The prospect of a gatekeeper choosing winners and losers on the Internet is unacceptable.” His statements against his agency’s own bill are akin to Br’er Rabbit feigning not wanting to be thrown into the briar patch.
By far the most successful petition, and the one that at this point has the best chance of receiving a response from the administration, is one that simply requests the White House “Maintain true net neutrality to protect the freedom of information in the United States.”
“One of the most effective tactics of an invading military is to inhibit the flow of information in a population; this includes which information is shared and by who. Today we see this war being waged on American citizens,” a resident from Ridgecrest, California, whose petition needs just under 29,000 signatures, wrote.
Here are a few of the petitions (and their current signature counts, at time of publication) regarding net neutrality currently active on the White House site, which can all use additional signatures. Petitions must meet or exceed a threshold of 100,000 signatures within 30 days before they require a response.
Reclassify Internet broadband providers as common carriers. (15,554)
Maintain true net neutrality to protect the freedom of information in the United States. (71,083)
Remove Tom Wheeler from his position as FCC Chairman (5,760)
Prevent the FCC from ruining the Internet (2,828)
The video below by Youtube user CGP Grey gives a great, easy to understand presentation of what’s at stake in the battle for net neutrality, and defines why maintaining the web in its current form should be one of the most important causes of our generation.
This article was posted: Friday, May 16, 2014 at 1:44 pm
Tags: internet
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VICTORY: Multiple States Have Now Banned Sharia Law
There is a movement within the Islamic religion that is engaged in a global jihad, which seeks to spread a radical Islamic ideology around the world, and subjugate other religions and peoples. Part of that global jihad is the imposition of Islamic civil law, better known as Sharia law, on the courts and governments that
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VICTORY: Multiple States Have Now Banned Sharia Law
Ben Marquis
Fri, 16 May 2014 19:05:29 GMT
Feds Failing to Inspect Thousands of Oil and Gas Wells: Report
GAO report finds Bureau of Land management letting countless 'high priority' wells slip through federal regulatory cracks
- Sarah Lazare, staff writer
Process of mixing water with fracking fluids to be injected into the ground. (Photo: Joshua Doubek / Wikimedia Creative Commons)
Amid soaring concerns about the health and environmental impacts of the U.S. fracking boom, federal regulators are failing to inspect thousands of oil and gas wells they have deemed high-risk, according to the government's own report released Monday.
According to the Government Accountability Office, the Bureau of Land Management—an arm of the Interior Department—did not inspect 2,100 of the 3,702 "high-priority" wells drilled between 2009 and 2012, even though such wells are mandated for inspection according to the bureau's own rules.
Frank Rusco, who oversaw the investigation as Director of Natural Resources and Environment for the GAO, told Common Dreams that such wells are deemed high-priority because "there is the need to protect usable water, or high-pressure zones—zones that contain hydrogen sulfate which could pose a safety hazard if it were to be released."
"This report shows a clear lack of accountability about what's happening on public and tribal lands," Jane Kleeb of environmental group Bold Nebraska told Common Dreams. "We have countless families that describe the pollution happening on their land. What pollution is happening that we don't know about?"
Adding to this lack of oversight, according to Rusco, the BLM's own process for identifying high-risk wells is "flawed" because designations are made locally by engineers who make inconsistent judgements across locations.
Of the wells deemed high-risk under this flawed system, the number slipping through the cracks could be far higher than 2,100. "[O]f the more than 14,000 federal and Indian oil and gas wells drilled from fiscal year 2009 through fiscal year 2012 on lands managed by BLM that we reviewed, BLM’s AFMSS database is missing data on whether 1,784 wells were identified as high- or low- priority," states the report.
According to Rusco, GAO investigators were unable to determine how many of these high-priority wells went without an inspection by state or federal regulators. "We know that some wells were inspected by states, but we don't know how many, because we don't have data from states."
For inspections that do occur, the BLM has outdated "rules and guidance governing oil and gas development" and has failed to keep up with "technological advances, such as hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling," according to the report.
"The GAO reports findings that high risk oil and gas wells are not being inspected is highly concerning," Emily Wurth, Director of the Water Policy Program for Food and Water Watch, told Common Dreams.
She added, "Our public lands should be protected for future generations, not exploited for the oil and gas industry's gain. That's why we support a ban on fracking on federal lands."
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BREAKING: New Emails Show IRS Attack Came From Washington
Despite President Obama’s claim that there isn’t even a “smidgen” of corruption in the IRS, and that any wrongdoing that may have occurred was because of rogue agents in the Cincinnati office, more and more evidence is emerging to the contrary, showing that the targeting of conservative groups was ordered by officials in Washington DC.
Numerous emails that have been released show that Washington officials, like Lois Lerner, were involved in coordinating the targeting of conservative groups. It has even been discovered that this targeting took place at the behest of Democrats in Congress, with emails showing Senator Carl Levin and Rep. Elijah Cummingswriting to various IRS officials asking them to harass tea party groups and to provide them with information about said groups.
It has also become apparent that the targeting took place in order to help Democratsduring the 2012 election season, by harassing, delaying and otherwise silencing conservative groups. Lois Lerner is heavily involved and implicated in this, and lied about it to Congress, leading to her being charged with contempt.
Now even more information showing that the IRS targeting originated in DC, and not Cincinnati, has been revealed by watchdog group Judicial Watch. (H/TNewsmax)
In one July 6, 2012, email from Holly Paz, manager of Exempt Organizations Guidance (EOT), to IRS lawyer Steven Grodnitzky, Paz asked for an explanation of how tea party group applications were being handled.
“EOT is working the tea party applications in coordination with Cincy. We are developing a few applications here in D.C. and providing copies of our development letters with the agent to use as examples in the development of their cases. [IRS lawyer] Chip Hull is working these cases in EOT and working with the agent in Cincy, so any communication should include him as well. Because the tea party applications are the subject of an [Sensitive Case Report], we cannot resolve any of the cases without coordinating with Rob.”
Judicial Watch thinks “Rob” is a reference to Rob Choi, who was then the IRS’ director of rulings and agreements and was based at the agency’s Washington headquarters, the Daily Caller reports.
This is direct proof that Obama, the White House, Democrats and DC officials, particularly Lois Lerner, have lied about their knowledge and involvement in the IRS targeting scandal. A newly released email also shows that the targeting took place at the urging of Senator Carl Levin.
Levin, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs permanent subcommittee on investigations, wrote a March 30, 2012, letter to then-IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman about the “urgency” of the issue of possible political activity by nonprofit applicants, the Daily Caller reported.
Levin asked if the IRS was sending out additional information requests to applicant groups, citing an IRS rejection letter to a conservative group as an example of how the IRS should be conducting its business, the Daily Caller said.
“Some entities claiming tax-exempt status as social welfare organizations under 26 U.S.C.&501(c)(4) appear to be engaged in political activities more appropriate for political organizations claiming tax-exempt status under 26 U.S.C.&527,” Levin wrote, the Daily Caller reported.
“Because of the urgency of the issues involved in this matter, please provide the following information by April 20, 2012,” he wrote.
The then acting Deputy Commissioner, Steven Miller, sent a 16 page email back to Senator Levin, explaining how certain IRS rules would allow for them to “prepare individualized questions and requests” for various conservative and Tea Party groups.
“There is no standard questionnaire used to obtain information about political activities,” Miller wrote. “Although there is a template development letter that describes the general information on the case development process, the letter does not specify the information to be requested from any particular organization . . . Consequently, revenue agents prepare individualized questions and requests for documents relevant to the application.”
What all of this shows is that there was a concerted, coordinated effort on the part of multiple individuals and agencies to deliberately target certain individuals and groups for political reasons. This is a blatant crime, and at the very least, highly unethical.
Now more than ever, it is apparent that there needs to be a special prosecutorappointed, or a select committee formed, with the express purpose of investigating the IRS, and holding accountable everyone who was involved in this scandal. People need to be fired, prosecuted and jailed for using to interminable power of the government to abuse law-abiding citizens who are only guilty of exercising their First Amendment right of free speech and freedom of assembly to petition the government for a redress of grievances.