Favorite Quotes

"Once you walk into a courtroom, you've already lost. The best way to win is to avoid it at all costs, because the justice system is anything but" Sydney Carton, Attorney. "There is no one in the criminal justice system who believes that system works well. Or if they are, they are for courts that are an embarrassment to the ideals of justice. The law of real people doesn't work" Lawrence Lessig, Harvard Law Professor.



Tuesday, March 31, 2015

New Daily Show host: “I never thought I’d be more afraid of police in America than in South Africa"


After introducing Noah as the show’s newest contributor at the time, Stewart noted: “And I know that you flew in, I guess, yesterday from South Africa.” Noah replied: “Yeah, I just flew in and boy are my arms tired….No, no, seriously, I’ve been holding my arms like this since I got here.” He made the completely discredited “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” gesture with his hands and added: “I never thought I’d be more afraid of police in America than in South Africa. It kind of makes me a little nostalgic for the old days back home.”

Later in the exchange, Stewart wondered: “But you’re not saying that things in Africa are better than they are in America, are you?”

Noah responded: “No, no, no, I’m not saying that – you guys are saying that.” A soundbite followed of left-wing New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof ranting on CNN:

The United States right now incarcerates more African-Americans, as a percentage, than Apartheid South Africa did. The race gap in wealth in the United States right now between the median white family and the median black family is eighteen-fold, that’s greater than the black-white wealth gap was in Apartheid South Africa.

Noah concluded: “Here’s the amazing part, for South Africa to achieve that kind of black-white wealth gap, we had to construct an entire Apartheid state, denying blacks the right to vote or own property. But you, you did it without even trying.”
http://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/comedy-central-names-trevor-noah-as-daily-show-host/259411
http://www.infowars.com/new-daily-show-host-joked-u-s-worse-than-apartheid-south-africa/

World incarceration rates if every U.S. state were a country:

The U.S. incarcerates 716 people for every 100,000 residents, more than any other country. In fact, our rate of incarceration is more than five times higher than most of the countries in the world. Although our level of crime is comparable to those of other stable, internally secure, industrialized nations,5 the United States has an incarceration rate far higher than any other country.

If we compare the incarceration rates of individual U.S. states and territories with that of other nations, for example, we see that 36 states and the District of Columbia have incarceration rates higher than that of Cuba, which is the nation with the second highest incarceration rate in the world.

New Jersey and New York follow just after Cuba. Although New York has been actively working on reducing its prison population, it’s still tied with Rwanda, which has the third highest national incarceration rate. Rwanda incarcerates so many people (492 per 100,000) because thousands are sentenced or awaiting trial in connection with the 1994 genocide that killed an estimated 800,000 people.6

Next comes the state of Washington, which claims the same incarceration rate as the Russian Federation. (In the wake of collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia used to rival the United States for the highest incarceration rate in the world. An epidemic of tuberculosis in the overcrowded prisons, however, encouraged the Russian government to launch a major amnesty in 1999 that significantly lowered that country’s incarceration rate.)7

Utah, Nebraska and Iowa all lock up a greater portion of their populations than El Salvador, a country with a recent civil war and one of the highest homicide rates in the world.8 Five of the U.S. states with the lowest incarceration rates — Minnesota, Massachusetts, North Dakota, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island — have higher incarceration rates than countries that have experienced major 20th century social traumas, including several former Soviet republics and South Africa.

The two U.S. states that incarcerate the least are Maine and Vermont, but even those two states incarcerate far more than the United State’s closest allies. The other NATO nations, for example, are concentrated in the lower half of this list. These nations incarcerate their own citizens at a rate five to ten times lower than the United States does.
 
Click the link below to read more:

The numerous ways DHS spies on Americans


Monday, March 30, 2015

Senator Chambers asks what are America's militarized police afraid of?


Nebraska Sen. Ernie Chambers talks about police abuse on our streets. See the video above.

Police in Minneapolis-St. Paul trained military-grade launchers and used flash bang and tear gas grenades on protesters at the 2008 Republican National Convention. The Richland County, South Carolina, Sheriff’s Department got an armored personnel carrier to help fight drug and gambling crime. And Ohio State University police acquired a 19-ton armored truck that can withstand mine blasts.

These are just a few examples of the growing militarization of police in America.

“You get these pictures that just shock the conscience,” said Republican state Sen. Branden Petersen of Minnesota, referring to news footage of heavily armed police patrolling streets or carrying out sting operations. His bill would bar law enforcement in the state from accepting gear that’s “designed to primarily have a military purpose or offensive capability.”

But Petersen and those backing similar efforts in other states — they’ve come up in California, Connecticut, Indiana, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Tennessee and Vermont  — face an uphill climb, partly because of the way law enforcement acquires the gear.

Sponsors against the militarization of police admit they face tough opposition from law enforcement officials, shareholders and lawmakers who support them.

A Stateline analysis of 1033 Program data shows that the 50 states hold nearly $1.7 billion worth of equipment, an average of nearly $34 million per state. Per capita, equipment values held by states range from less than $1 for Alaska, Pennsylvania and Hawaii to more than $14 for Alabama, Florida, New Mexico and Tennessee.

The type of gear the states have also varies widely. Alaska law enforcement, for example, has 165 rifles and almost $170,000 in night vision equipment, among other items.

But law enforcement in Florida, has 47 mine-resistant vehicles, 36 grenade launchers and more than 7,540 rifles. In Texas, there are 73 mine-resistant vehicles and a $24.3 million aircraft. In Tennessee, there are 31 mine-resistant vehicles and seven grenade launchers. North Carolina has 16 helicopters and 22 grenade launchers.

The 1033 is a shadowy program that lacks oversight and lets police request anything they want, regardless of whether they need it. Some say it even tramples the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the U.S. military from operating on American soil.
http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2015/3/24/can-states-slow-the-flow-of-military-equipment-to-police

Friday, March 27, 2015

The TSA/DHS police state expands to biometric iris and fingerprint scans at airports

 
New York-based CLEAR, has iris and fingerprint scanning kiosks at TWELVE airports with more to follow! They verify travelers’ identities through fingerprint and iris scans which are integrated into the Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) existing Pre-Check system.

CLEAR iris scanner:


CLEAR fingerprint scanner:















Irony: Earlier this month I reported how the TSA/DHS thinks terrorists own & operate mall kiosks.
Why would the govt target mall kiosks you ask? Hint: they're a billion dollar business. Terrorists running kiosks you say? What does that make CLEAR?  It seems to me the real terrorists are corporations and govt profiting from the never-ending war on terror!

The TSA ‘Pre-Check’system recently let an ex-terrorist breezed through security.

"Convicted domestic terrorist Sara Jane Olson, 68, of St. Paul, was allowed to go through TSA's expedited security screening known as TSA Pre Check last year, despite her criminal background. And when a TSA Agent at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport recognized Olson, and alerted a supervisor, his concerns were ignored. "

"The Inspector General makes two recommendations in the report. The first is heavily redacted and reads: “We recommend that the TSA Chief Risk Officer: Discontinue _____ Secure Flight program _______________.” TSA disagreed with that recommendation. The Inspector General said in considered TSA's action “non-responsive to the intent of the recommendation which remains open and unresolved.” It appears from the exchange that TSA considered Olson a low risk, and therefore acceptable for TSA Pre Check."

Click here to read the heavily redacted report. Click here to read about what needs to be done to fix the 'Pre-Check' system.

Warnings about the TSA's 'Pre-Check' system go back to 2012.

A look at the 'Pre-Check' system claims over ONE MILLION people have registered! Allowing a private corporation and the TSA/DHS to scan your Iris & fingerprints is beyond imagination!

The company said it is certified as a "Qualified Anti-Terrorism Technology" by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and has already been used 2 million times by travelers in airports across the country, from New York to Colorado and California.

Dulles is the nation's third most popular airport enrollment site, with 17,844 applications filed there as of March 22, the TSA said. Reagan has seen 9,214 applications.
 
BWI does not offer on-site enrollment, but an off-site location in Dundalk has received 9,404 applications and another in Linthicum has seen 1,931.

CLEAR proudly boasts:

We are thrilled to bring CLEAR to BWI, one of the nation’s fastest-growing airports and one our CLEAR members have requested be added to our network,” said CLEAR CEO Caryn Seidman Becker. “Increasing our east coast presence and joining the DC Metro Area is a 2015 priority for us and we are thrilled to be accomplishing this in partnership with BWI.

Of course they're thrilled! CLEAR & DHS's shareholders must be doing cartwheels and law enforcement must be throwing block parties at the prospect of having over One MILLION+ Americans hand over their biometrics freely.

Those interested in joining CLEAR’s membership program can apply online or at BWI’s A, B and D concourses for a fee of less than $15 a month, which also includes discounts to other services such as Hertz car rentals. The company also offers “preferred rates” for military personnel and corporations.

Giving discounts to corporations, is a no-brainer they're the ones behind our Police State!

Incredible! You have to pay a private company and the TSA $15.00 a month to let them use your biometric info. and as an added bonus they'll give you a discount on Hertz car rentals!

What do you not want for Valentines day or any other day? A GODDAMN CLEAR gift card for $49.00! It's come to this, biometric companies have the audacity to offer gift cards to your loved ones! Send them to everyone in congress, see if they'll scan their iris and fingerprints.


I say BOYCOTT Hertz now, and fight for our rights. Things have gone so incredibly off the reservation we have to stop this!

John McAfee: 'Stingrays' being used to spy on him and the public without a warrant

 
McAfee claims law enforcement in major cities have hundreds of 'Stingray' devices! Listen to the video above.

The map below tracks what we know, based on press reports and publicly available documents, about the use of stingray tracking devices by state and local police departments. Following the map is a list of the federal law enforcement agencies known to use the technology throughout the United States. The ACLU has identified 48 agencies in 20 states and the District of Columbia that own stingrays, but because many agencies continue to shroud their purchase and use of stingrays in secrecy, this map dramatically underrepresents the actual use of stingrays by law enforcement agencies nationwide.

Stingrays, also known as "cell site simulators" or "IMSI catchers," are invasive cell phone surveillance devices that mimic cell phone towers and send out signals to trick cell phones in the area into transmitting their locations and identifying information. When used to track a suspect's cell phone, they also gather information about the phones of countless bystanders who happen to be nearby. Click here for the latest ACLU news and analysis on stingrays.

Click on the link below to see how many law enforcement agencies are using 'Stingrays'.
https://www.aclu.org/maps/stingray-tracking-devices-whos-got-them

EPIC Prevails in "Stingray" Case Against FBI:

EPIC's lawsuit produced the release of more than 4,000 pages of documents about a phony cell tower technique called "Stingray." The documents obtained by EPIC revealed that the FBI used the devices to monitor cell phones without a warrant, and provided Stingrays to other law enforcement agencies.

Below is a list of 'Stingray' detector apps:

SnoopSnitch Stingray Detector App:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.srlabs.snoopsnitch&hl=en

Twitter Stingray Detector App:
https://twitter.com/aimsicd

Android IMSI-Catcher Detector :
https://secupwn.github.io/Android-IMSI-Catcher-Detector/

Spidey App Stingray Detector:
http://signup.spideyapp.com/

Thursday, March 26, 2015

What's next in police state America? Why armed TSA police of course!


Are you ready for an armed TSA?

The NY Times reported the union that represents the TSA renewed its push for armed agents at checkpoints of the nation's airports. Using a violent attack by a machete-wielding taxi driver in New Orleans as an excuse. 

Another pilot allegedly crashed a plane on purpose with 150 people on board, why doesn't the TSA demand yearly psychological and polygraphs exams of pilots? Why don't they set up random DUI pre-flight checkpoints of pilots nationwide?  What about tired pilots that fall asleep in the cockpit? Police state America knows pilots would strike and air transportation would come to a halt.

There's NO WAY OF KNOWING if your pilot has a mental illness in America.

In the U.S., the Federal Aviation Administration requires that pilots receive a physical exam from a flight surgeon annually or every six months depending upon the pilot's age. The International Civil Aviation Organization, a U.N. agency that sets global aviation standards, also requires that pilots receive a periodic medical exam, including a mental assessment.
 
Technically, doctors are supposed to probe for mental problems, but pilots said that's usually not how it works.
 
"There really is no mental health vetting," said John Gadzinski, a captain with a major U.S. airline and former Navy pilot. In 29 years of physicals from flight surgeons he's never once been asked about his mental health, he said.

Doug Moss, a Boeing 777 pilot for a major airline, said: "It is a very cursory inspection. If a pilot can just hold a reasonable conversation with a flight surgeon then that generally fulfills his square."
 
There also is no confidential reporting, Gadzinski said. "If you had a mental health issue, you certainly wouldn't tell your flight surgeon about that because it goes right to the FAA," he said.

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGA) represents 45,000 TSA officers nationwide. But the AFGE doesn't want all TSA agents armed, but rather a special law enforcement unit administered by the TSA. How many armed TSA agents do you think they want 10,000, 15,000 maybe 25,000?

We need more police in America don't we?

It's hard to put a precise number on America's private police but it would be fair to say that there's over 1.5 MILLION and growing.

America has almost ONE MILLION police officers, this doesn't include private police or security guards, which is larger than the 1.5 MILLION by most estimates. Private security guards have outnumbered police officers since the 1980s. The more than 1 million contract security officers, and guards work directly for U.S. corporations.

That means there's over 2.5 MILLION POLICE in the US with no signs of stopping!

"You can see the public police becoming like the public health system," said Thomas M. Seamon, a former deputy police commissioner for Philadelphia who is president of Hallcrest Systems Inc.

Public/private police becoming like America's public health system? In other words it will continue to grow unchecked and over-funded. All you have to do is mention the magic word 'TERROR' and taxpayer dollars flood in unabated.

Will TSA agents be given armored mine-resistant vehicles 'tanks' and automatic weapons? Of course they will.

J. David Cox, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said TSA officers are subjected to VERBAL and physical violence on a regular basis.

Soon Americans will be too intimated to berate or criticize TSA agents decked out in tactical gear.


"We are sickened by the mindlessness and ferocity of this attack on TSA officers," Cox said in a statement on the union website. "TSOs go to work every day to keep our nation safe from violent individuals who look to inflict harm on the flying public. All too often, TSOs become the targets of violence themselves, both VERBAL and physical."

"The security of TSOs and the flying public at checkpoints is a real concern," AFGE tweeted Monday. "We can't just keep repeating the same incident over & over."

We're sickened by the never-ending war on... wait for it... TERROR! It's just more B.S. our mass media is feeding the public. Arming TSA agents are you F***ing kidding me?

Ask yourselves who's more dangerous a 'terrorist' pilot or an armed TSA agent?

We're sickened by police killing Americans. In 2014, police in the United States killed 1,100 people.  During that same year, police in Canada killed 14 people, police in China killed 12 people and police in Germany didn’t kill anyone at all. On a side note China's population is nearly 1.4 billion, America's is 333 million.

The DHS run TSA doesn't skip a beat in their attempt to arm every federal employee.

Below is a list of numerous armed govt agencies that DHS controls or has close ties to:

Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
Department of Justice (USDOJ)
Department of State (DOS)
Department of Commerce (DOC)
Department of Education
Department of Health and Human Services
Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Department of the Interior (USDI)
Other Major Federal Law Enforcement Agencies

You're being programmed into accepting a national driver's license known as 'Real ID'


Half a century ago people had to be reassured their social security card was not being used for identification. Now there are federally standardized and globally synchronized ID cards, government-sponsored online ID projects, DNA databases, and even secret databases of your newborn baby's genetic information.

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Mall security is using facial recognition to spy on everyone


Documents obtained by The Intercept proves mall security guards are using fake Facebook accounts to monitor activists, befriend them, and obtain their personal information and photographs without their knowledge.
 
Mall of America enters EVERY visitor into Homeland Security terror reports.

The American police state is so out of control, malls are recording your license plates.


Click here to read more.

Whatever you do, don't look at mall security in a suspicious manner or you and your family could find yourselves in a Fusion Center database, see the example below:

"As he shopped for a children’s watch inside the sprawling Mall of America, two security guards approached and began questioning him. Although he was not accused of wrongdoing, the guards filed a confidential report about Brad Kleinerman that was forwarded to local police.

The reason: Guards thought he might pose a threat because they believed he had been looking at them in a suspicious way."
 
Think of entering a mall as one GIANT government (DHS) surveillance center, as soon as you enter a mall your license plate is being recorded and entered into a criminal database. As you approach the mall on foot, surveillance cameras take biometric pictures of you and your family and compare it to possible criminals or terrorists. Do you have a smartphone? Retail stores track your cell phone signal and know exactly where you are. Have you entered your personal information into a customer loyalty program? Guess what? EVERY purchase you make is being tracked.

“Any piece of data they can collect, most companies will collect. They probably know everything they want to know and more,” said Llewellyn Gibbons, a University of Toledo law professor.

There's an entire industry dedicated to mall surveillance, click here, here & here to find out more.
 
Evidence of Mall of America's fake Facebook account was found in a cache of files given to Bloomington police after a large Black Lives Matter event at the mall on December 20 protesting police brutality. The files included briefs on individual organizers, with screenshots that suggest that much of the information was captured using a Facebook account for a person named “Nikki Larson.”
 
Metadata from some of the documents lists the software that created them as belonging to “Sam Root” at the “Mall of America.” A Facebook account for a Sam Root lists his profession as “Intelligence Analyst at Mall of America.” 
 
“We don’t like the idea of large corporations spying on people for their political activity,” says Jordan Kushner, one of the attorneys for the activists being charged by the city. Kushner, who has represented many other protest groups in the Twin Cities region, observed that such surveillance tactics appear to be part of a “growing, disturbing trend.” 

This really shouldn't come as a surprise, DHS is training security guards nationwide.

Private companies like Allied Barton have standardized mall security nationwide, in other words they're working with DHS. See the example below:

"Prior to the engagement of AlliedBarton, PREIT malls used several forms of security personnel, including in-house security, contract security and local police services. This mixed use of security coverage, while effective, resulted in a variety of standards and procedures that differed from mall to mall. As a result, PREIT saw a need to upgrade the manner in which its security personnel and policies were being managed. It initiated a two-year process of assessing proposals from national security service providers highly experienced in mall security."
 
Another website called the Virginia surveillance force, you can't make this stuff up. They specialize in surveilling everyone and everything. They have a page on their website devoted to surveillance that should make everyone shudder.

"Virginia Surveillance Force provide safety and protection for malls, retail stores shopping centers & Industrial areas.  If you're an owner or property manager of a mall or a shopping center, then the safety of your clients and or customers is very important to you. Shopping Centers come in all sizes from the giant regional malls to the small strip-center with only a few stores. What they all have in common is a parking lot. The most violent crimes committed in the parking lot are purse snatching, strong arm robbery, carjacking and abductions. Whether it's theft of a store, or stealing cars while customers are shopping, thieves will take whatever opportunity is given them. Virginia Surveillance Force has security officers are fully trained to combat this threat. Mall security is a top concern, and Virginia Surveillance Force is ready to solve the problem."

"Virginia Surveillance Force is a progressive leader in the Mall & shopping security. VSF is commitment to excellence in Services to guests, crime prevention, crime suppression, inovative programs, pride, participation and productivity."

Information collected from Facebook was used by the Mall of America security team to build dossiers on each activist. A document on Nekima Levy-Pounds, one of the activists charged by the city, includes screen grabs of her Facebook account. Levy-Pounds, professor of law at the University of St. Thomas, told The Intercept that the Larson account befriended her in December.
 
Another dossier profiling activist Lena Gardner contains pictures, a timeline listing where to spot her in videos from the protest taken by protestors and by Mall of America security, as well as information scraped from her social media accounts. Similar documents were created for at least eight other activists.

The Larson account appears to have been created in 2009, and had 817 friends, many of whose pages showed they were involved in Minnesota political activism. The account also “liked” Facebook groups associated with Ferguson activists, the American Indian Movement Interpretive Center, Occupy Minneapolis, SumOfUs, the SEIU Minnesota State Council, and Communities United Against Police Brutality, among others.

Jim Lukaszewski, a crisis communications expert at Risdall Public Relations, profiled efforts by mall security to carefully track political protesters. In a case study posted on the Risdall website titled “Fulminating Flash Mobs,” Lukaszewski explains how mall security responded to a flash mob dance by Idle No More, a Native American rights group. “Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus were being aggressively monitored using Topsy, Monitor, and Kurrently,” the case study claims, noting that arrest kits were prepared in an area “hidden from public view to avoid antagonizing the crowd.”
 


According to a 2011 investigation by NPR and the Center for Investigative Reporting, featuring reporting from The Intercept’s Margot Williams, the Mall of America created its own private counterterrorism unit called Risk Assessment and Mitigation, or RAM. The report found that the unit had adopted aggressive procedures to pursue mall patrons, often for ordinary behavior. One Pakistani-American named Najam Qureshi was questioned by the FBI after his father had left a cellphone on a Mall of America food court table, prompting the counterterrorism unit to report the father to local authorities, who relayed the incident to the federal government, which then sent an investigator to Qureshi’s home.
 
DHS has convinced security guards and the public that kiosk owners could be terrorists.

Najam Qureshi, owner of a kiosk that sold items from his native Pakistan, also had his own experience with authorities after his father left a cell phone on a table in the food court.

The consequence: An FBI agent showed up at the family’s home, asking if they knew anyone who might want to hurt the United States.

WELCOME to the great American police state, where you and your family are suspects.

Private companies are turning huge profits surveilling innocent Americans, where does it end?
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/18/mall-americas-intelligence-analyst-catfished-black-lives-matter-activists-collect-information/

Near total surveillance of evey motorist in America


Things are way beyond just traffic cameras... The average city intersection is jammed with so much surveillance technology, that it would be difficult to even sort out what is what.

During a couple intersections we observed, there were not only eye-in-the-sky cameras, but angles of every direction of traffic, plus several antennas relying data to the authorities, a red light camera photographing license plates and generating revenue, and what else?


Well, just what are some of these other traffic gizmos? We saw one shaped like a bell... a spotlight... and several small white boxes... and more on the road.

Meanwhile, the news is discussing things like gunshot detection (and conversation monitoring) microphones on city streets, and sophisticated mesh networks that have been found to collect cell phone location data from passing cars at collection sites situated at numerous major city intersections... in turn relaying real time surveillance and location data to a network of law enforcement agencies, as well as Fusion Centers operated by Homeland Security and the FBI. Just think what the combination of real time cell location data, combined with traffic light monitoring of license plates could accomplish... and don't forget that Homeland Security is continuing to phase in "intelligent" street lights with two-way communications, monitoring, live-time behavior correction and even state-sponsored propaganda announcements.

Somehow, this is bound to be just scratching the surface. We now live in 1984, and beyond 1984 in a total-surveillance panopticon fed by grass-roots "sousveillance" user-generated data as well as top-down police and city camera and location data.

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Amtrak/DHS is spying on passengers and letting police access records without warrants

 
Do you feel secure knowing DHS/police are spying on passenger records without a warrant?

The first release of documents from 'Papers Please.org'sFOIA request for records of police and govt access to Amtrak reservation data show that Amtrak is giving police root access and a dedicated user interface to mine passenger data for general state and law enforcement purposes and is lying to passengers about it.

Papers Please. Org's FOIA request was prompted by Amtrak’s obviously incomplete response to an earlier FOIA request from the ACLU.  That response omitted any mention of  Homeland Security's (DHS) access to Amtrak reservation data. Even though we’ve seen records of Amtrak profiling passengers and denying DHS involvement. The documents were clearly responsive to the ACLU’s request, and should have been included in Amtrak’s response to that request.

The first release to Papers Please by Amtrak includes a few documents: a 2004 letter from US Customs and Border Potection (CBP) to the Amtrak Police legal department, requesting “voluntary” provision by Amtrak to CBP of Advanced Passenger Information System (APIS) identification data about all passengers on international Amtrak trains, and a 2004-2005 project summary and scoping document for the work that would be required by Amtrak’s IT department to automate the collection, maintenance in Amtrak’s “ARROW” passenger reservation database, and deliver the data to customs (DHS).

Amtrak's reservation database is being collected by a PRIVATE corporation that spies on you  and forwards it to the govt! Remember your tax dollars are being used to pay for this B.S. and they're laughing all the way to the bank!

The letter from CBP notes that as of 2004, Amtrak was faxing passenger manifests for its international trains to CBP.  The letter notes that legal mandates for provision of passenger information to CBP “do not currently extend to land modes of transportation, such as rail”, but also points out that, “The law does include a requirement that the government assess the feasibility of extending the requirements to land transportation.”

At least one Senator has called for the the extension to Amtrak of the Secure Flight system of surveillance and control of air travelers, and DHS has said that “CBP is pursuing ‘All Modes‘ APIS legislative authority to clarify its broad authority to mandate the transmission of manifest information, including all international rail and bus travel.” But no such legislation has been approved, and any participation in such a scheme by Amtrak, like the ongoing provision of APIS data about Amtrak passengers to CBP, remains voluntary.

The project summary prepared by Amtrak’s ID department says categorically, however, that, “Information pertaining to passengers and crewmembers traveling across the U.S./Canadian border is required by the DHS.”

Was Amtrak’s ID department lying about whether this was required? Or were they misled by Amtrak Police about the state of the law? There would have been little reason, however, for programmers to lie, in their internal IT planning documents, about what they thought the law required. It’s much more likely that the Amtrak Police misled other Amtrak departments as to what the law required — probably fearing that Amtrak programmers and other operational staff might resist “voluntarily” spying on their customers and passengers.

Amtrak/DHS are checking your ID's just like they did in Nazi Germany and their VIPR teams treat Americans like terrorists click here, here and here to read more.

Amtrak is also way behind in responding to FOIA requests, for disciplinary records related to misconduct by Amtrak Police.

Amtrak's even hiding passenger complaints about lounge car service, click here to read more.
http://papersplease.org/wp/2015/03/20/amtrak-lies-about-police-use-of-passenger-data/

Friday, March 20, 2015

What's next in police state America? Why wearable alcohol biosensors of course!


Scientists will compete to create an improved wearable alcohol biosensor contest sponsored by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAA) or really the National Institutes of Health (NIH)

FYI, the NIAA is a component of the NIH.

If you guessed Homeland Security is behind this, give yourself a gold star. Click here & here to read more. Don't forget wherever DHS goes Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) is sure to follow. MADD has a close relationship with Homeland Security, click herehere to read more.

When there's money to be made you can bet private companies are working with DHS to turn a quick profit! New alcohol sensing (spying) bracelets like 'Vive' are being marketed as safety devices and also to prevent sexual abuse.

If you also guessed Microsoft is behind this, give yourself another gold star! Click here to read more.

"Vive is a smart wearable concept with integrated sensors that monitor the wearer’s biometrics related to alcohol consumption and keeps them synced up to their designated party group, so friends know if something’s wrong. It is designed to be desirable to young people, while keeping them safe and connected as they party. Vive amplifies existing social networks, making sure individuals don’t get separated from their group. When things get out of control, Vive makes sure a user is not alone."

Another company profiting from wearable alcohol wrist bracelets calls it a 'WriSTAS.'  Pronounced Wrist Ass? Because you'd have to be an ASS to let big brother monitor your alcohol intake and location.

"Alcohol abuse continues to be a serious problem for health and public safety. Approximately 14,000 lives are lost annually in alcohol-involved vehicle crashes.

Giner, Inc. has developed a transdermal alcohol sensor for measuring human alcohol consumption. The advanced wrist-worn prototype has been tested at several clinical sites in controlled clinical studies and field studies on over 250 research subjects. These WrisTAS™ (Wrist Transdermal Alcohol Sensor) prototypes are available for research studies where it is important to objectively track patterns of drinking."

The reality is far different than for-profit corporations would have you believe. Recent DHS/NHTSA studies claim drunk driving is decreasing. Click here to read more.

Interestingly, no mention is made on how police and the government would use the information saved on these devices to prosecute you.

The NIAA issued the Wearable Alcohol Biosensor Challenge earlier this month.

The contest goal is to create a device that will deliver accurate, real-time data to measure how much someone has been drinking. The data would benefit researchers, clinicians and therapists, as well as individuals.

The study would "prevent children and adolescents from beginning and continuing to drink alcohol."

What's next another 'Prohibition'? We all now how that turned out, right?

Presently, an alcohol biosensor bracelet can only take a reading every 30 minutes. The NIH calls the current model "effective but cumbersome."

"The winning design could take the form of jewelry or clothing, and it should be inconspicuous. In addition to measuring a person's alcohol level, the device should store the data or transmit it to a smartphone. " Yeah, because that makes perfect sense! Lets let our smartphone record every drink you've consumed so the police will have a handy way to prosecute you!

"This project is designed to stimulate investment from public and private sectors in the development of improved alcohol biosensors that will be appealing to researchers, treatment providers and individuals," said NIAAA director George F. Koob, Ph.D. It's all about the money!

According to NIH, a well-calibrated alcohol biosensor is more accurate than self-reporting and eliminates the need for multiple blood draws.

The contest deadline is Dec. 1, with judging to begin in January 2016. Contestant must submit a prototype, photos, videos and data proving the device's functionality and accuracy.

 The winners will be announced on or after Feb. 15, 2016. First prize is $200,000, and second prize is $100,000.

To enter the Wearable Alcohol Biosensor Challenge, click here.

 SCRAM alcohol monitoring ankle bracelets are being used to spy on Americans right now.
Click here to read more and watch the video below:


  

The reality is the American Police State is forcibly collecting Americans DNA & blood across the country.
http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/03/18/nih-asks-scientists-for-a-better-alcohol-biosensor.htm

Thursday, March 19, 2015

NSA whistleblower: It's all about control & keeping the public in the dark

Former National Security Agency technical director turned whistleblower William Binney told Alex Jones that the US no longer represented a country with a constitutional govt.
Binney, a 36-year agency veteran who blew the whistle on domestic surveillance in 2001, warned that the United States was sliding dangerously close to “totalitarianism” under the NSA’s plan for a “controlled society.”

“I basically see us moving to a controlled society. A totalitarian state where the govt wants to be in charge,” Binney stated.”When Reagan said, ‘We’re a country with a govt,’ I think we’re now a govt with a country.”

Highlighting the NSA’s continued deception on the scope and scale of domestic and international surveillance programs, Binney pointed to historically dangerous talking points currently used by the agency to keep the American public in the dark.

“If they say, ‘If you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide,’ first of all that’s a great quote from Joseph Goebbels, and secondly that’s totally irrelevant… That’s right out of Hitler’s playbook,” he said. “If you’re going to tell a lie, make it a big one and tell it frequently until it’s believed and that’s what’s going on here.”

During his tenure at NSA, Binney witnessed first-hand the oppressive surveillance tactics of groups such as East Germany’s “secret police,” commonly know as the Stasi, giving him a unique historical insight into the dangers of unchecked intelligence powers.

Like many govt agencies, Binney argued that the modus operandi of the NSA has become “keep the problem going so the money keeps flowing.”

“Their problem is getting the next contract,” he said. “If you solve the problem, you don’t have the problem to get money. That’s their philosophy.”

In other words keep the public believing in the never-ending threat of TERROR, while they laugh all the way to the bank!

By weakening global encryption standards under programs such as “Bullrun,” the NSA has also opened the door for other surveillance agencies and rogue hackers to access important data.

“NSA has no monopoly on smart people. People around the world, hackers and people in Russia and China… also have smart people and they can go in and hack into systems and recognize these weaknesses in the firewalls and operating systems and encryption systems so they can penetrate everything too,” Binney said.

“The point is, if you keep those things weak, which is what the operational side of NSA wants to do because then that allows them to see into what your doing, they can penetrate it to get it.”

Internal groups within the NSA even refuse to share vital information with one another in an attempt to keep control of offensive and defensive operational techniques.
http://www.infowars.com/nsa-whistleblower-were-no-longer-a-country-with-a-government-were-a-government-with-a-country/

Jesse Ventura: Who's funding terrorism?


Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Judicial advisory panel allows FBI to hack computers worldwide

 
The FBI and DOJ are one step closer to having one of their "keeping up with the digital Joneses" requests granted. While the default phone encryption offered by Apple (and at some point in the future by Google) still remains free of law enforcement/intelligence "Golden Backdoors," the agencies are one step closer to being legally permitted to hack nearly any computer in the world.

EPIC criticized the proposal in a statement presented by Senior Counsel Alan Butler. EPIC had previously filed an amicus brief on a similar issue, the delivery of warrants via facsimile.

A judicial advisory panel Monday quietly approved a rule change that will broaden the FBI's hacking authority despite fears raised by Google that the amended language represents a "monumental" constitutional concern. 

For those of you paying attention giving the FBI permission is in reality, allowing law enforcement nationwide the ability to hack into any American's computer without a warrant!

 The Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Criminal Rules voted 11-1 to modify an arcane federal rule to allow judges more flexibility in how they approve search warrants for electronic data, according to a Justice Department spokesman.

The judicial advisory committee's vote is only the first of several stamps of approval required within the federal judicial branch before the the rule change can formally take place—a process that will likely take over a year. The proposal is now subject to review by the Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, which normally can approve amendments at its June meeting. The Judicial Conference is next in line to approve the rule, a move that would likely occur in September. 
 
No longer bound by physical jurisdictions, the FBI will be able to perform remote searches all over the globe. This is its "21st century" fix -- a permission slip to implant malicious software in any computer, located anywhere, in order to track suspected criminals. That performing these actions may break local laws is just the acceptable collateral damage inherent to modern-day crimefighting.

The Supreme Court would have until May 1, 2016 to review and accept the amendment, which Congress would then have seven months to reject, modify or defer. Absent any congressional action, the rule would take place on Dec. 1, 2016.

While the fight against the rule change will continue, its procession through the next couple of steps will likely be as quiet as its passage by the judicial advisory panel. Those in the position to shut this down are going to find it hard to argue against law enforcement and national security talking points.

Remember politicians & law enforcement have the 'golden ticket' and its name is TERRORISM.
Mention that one word and our rights disappear!
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150317/07440430342/judicial-committee-gives-fbi-first-ok-it-needs-to-hack-any-computer-anywhere-planet.shtml
http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/fbi-s-plan-to-expand-hacking-power-advances-despite-privacy-fears-20150316

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

DHS considers gamers & photographers a suspicious activity


The current case, known as Gill et al. v. Department of Justice et al (Gill v. DOJ), seeks to halt the standards that define the entire Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) program. If Gill is successful, it could effectively stop it.

The case involves five Americans—“two photographers, one white man who is a devout Muslim, and two men of Middle Eastern and South Asian descent”—according to the original July 2014 complaint. Among others, lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union brought the case.

Lead plaintiff Wiley Gill is a white man who converted to Islam as a student at California State University, Chico, and he drew the attention of the Chico Police Department in May 2012. (Chico is about 180 miles due north of San Francisco.) According to the SAR about Gill, the officer entered Gill’s residence in response to an apparent domestic violence incident (Gill was home alone). The officer then saw on a webpage “titled something similar to ‘Games that fly under the radar’" on Gill’s computer.

"Coupled with the fact he is unemployed, appears to shun law enforcement contact, has potential access to flight simulators via the Internet which he tried to minimize is worthy of note," the SAR, entitled "Suspicious Male Subject in Possession of Flight Simulator Game," concludes.

In October 2014, the govt responded to the suit with a motion to dismiss, arguing among other things that the plaintiffs lacked standing. The feds believed that none of the plaintiffs can prove a “legally cognizable injury.”

Playing games and using the internet are inherently suspicious because of this tenuous thread:

The 9/11 terrorists used flight simulators to train for their attacks. (The SAR guidelines warn that "acquisition of expertise" related to "aviation activity" is suspicious enough to be awarded a capital "S.") Had the Chico Police Dept. bothered to toss a little respect the Fourth Amendment's way, Gill would likely be nothing more than just some guy looking for a job rather than currently involved in a federal civil rights lawsuit over government surveillance.

This tiny bit of unrelated "data" was gathered by the Chico PD, which entered Gill's residence without a warrant or his consent. According to the lawsuit filed by the ACLU, the "domestic violence call" that predicated the search of Gill's residence was likely bogus and only used as justification to search a residence the CPD planned to search anyway. For the better part of two years, Gill had several previous "interactions" with Chico police officers, almost all of them based solely on his appearance ("full beard and traditional garb," "pious demeanor") and religious activities. 

Judge Richard Seeborg didn't buy the govt’s argument:
The allegations of the complaint, however, show that the gravamen of the alleged injuries lie not in actions of “front line” authorities standing alone, but in the fact that those authorities, pursuant to the guidance and training provided by defendants, submit SAR reports under criteria and circumstances that are allegedly inconsistent with legal principles and policies embodied in other law. Plaintiffs’ cognizable challenge is not to the conduct of law enforcement or private security officers during the alleged encounters per se, although there is at least some implication that plaintiffs believe Defendants’ Standards lead front line personnel to overreach even at the point of making initial observations. Plaintiffs are claiming injury from what occurs after the encounters, pursuant to the Standards.
Gill did nothing more than "look Muslim" and play videogames. Other plaintiffs did little more than commit photography.

Internationally-renowned photographer (and former Sara Lee/Levi's executive), James Prigoff, became the subject of an SAR for trying to take photographs of something that has been previously photographed hundreds of times without incident:

The "Rainbow Swash" painting that adorns a Boston oil refinery's storage tank. Prigoff was approached by the company's security guards and told he couldn't photograph the oft-photographed storage tank. Despite leaving and providing no contact information, Prigoff was visited by a member of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force shortly after returning to his home in Sacramento.

Plaintiff Aaron Conklin, a graphic design student, was approached by sheriff's deputies while photographing a refinery. He was told he would be put on a "NSA watchlist."


DHS wants to continue violating Americans rights while producing no results. The government moved to dismiss this lawsuit, claiming none of the plaintiffs can prove a "legally cognizable injury" and attempted to put the blame back on the shoulders of local law enforcement agencies. This didn't sit well with Judge Richard Seeborg.
Defendants primarily frame their challenge to plaintiffs’ standing as a purported failure to allege facts showing causation and redressability. Defendants’ argument characterizes plaintiffs’ supposed injuries as arising, if at all, primarily from the actions of the “front line” state and local law enforcement authorities. Defendants contend plaintiffs have not alleged, and credibly cannot, that the scrutiny they purportedly received from state and local police, or even from private security personnel, was the result of the challenged protocols or other conduct of defendants.

The allegations of the complaint, however, show that the gravamen of the alleged injuries lie not in actions of “front line” authorities standing alone, but in the fact that those authorities, pursuant to the guidance and training provided by defendants, submit SAR reports under criteria and circumstances that are allegedly inconsistent with legal principles and policies embodied in other law. Plaintiffs’ cognizable challenge is not to the conduct of law enforcement or private security officers during the alleged encounters per se, although there is at least some implication that plaintiffs believe Defendants’ Standards lead front line personnel to overreach even at the point of making initial observations. Plaintiffs are claiming injury from what occurs AFTER the encounters, pursuant to the Standards. As such, defendants’ contentions as to causality and redressability both fail.

The harms plaintiffs seek to remedy arise directly from the existence of Defendants’ Standards. If plaintiffs can show those standards violate the APA, they will be declared invalid.

While invoking causality and redressability as the main purported shortcomings of plaintiffs’ standing, defendants also imply that merely being the subject of an SAR, in the national database, should not be deemed a cognizable injury. In light of the privacy and reputational interests involved, however, this argument is not tenable.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/02/suspicious-male-in-possession-of-flight-simulator-game-lawsuit-moves-ahead/
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150225/09584130140/lawsuit-over-dhs-first-amendment-violating-suspicious-activity-reports-given-green-light-judge.shtml
 
DHS/FBI's latest B.S. warning: Protestors/activists might attack emergency vehicles 

The Virginia Fusion Center (VFC) has observed via open sources that actors affiliated with the Anonymous hacktivist movement released a video which purportedly identifies a Chicago Office of Emergency Management and Communications (OEMC) vehicle as a tool for law enforcement wiretapping efforts by police and fusion center personnel in Chicago, Illinois. In other words the public identified police using "Stingray" cellphone surveillance.

Click here & here to read more.

The VFC is sharing this information for situational awareness, as emergency management vehicles operating near protest areas may be targeted by precipitating violent or malicious activity.

How is identifying govt vehicles that are illegally spying on Americans a pre-cursor to violence? It's beyond reason and B.S.! This is the American Police State we live in, if you expose govt. wrongdoing you're considered a threat!

Need more proof of the American Police State lunacy? The DHS/FBI even considers staying at  hotels to be suspicious.

American statism is the most dangerous religion


Monday, March 16, 2015

Every terrorist attack in U.S was a false flag attack by our govt

 
Robert David Steele – a 20-year Marine Corps infantry and intelligence officer, the second-ranking civilian in U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence, and former CIA clandestine services case officer.

"Most terrorists are false flag terrorists or are created by our own security services.

In the United States, every single terrorist incident we have had has been a false flag, or has been an informant pushed on by the FBI.

In fact, we now have citizens taking out restraining orders against FBI informants that are trying to incite terrorism.

We’ve become a lunatic asylum."

Click here & here to see how the U.S. and nations all over the world have created false flags.

The war on TERROR has become a business model for the U.S. & UK.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/03/steele-every-single-terrorist-attack-u-s-false-flag-egged-intelligence-services.html

The FBI is very good at stopping terror plots of its own design:

The FBI is very good at stopping 'terrorist' plots of its own design. Trevor Aaronson reports for The Intercept:
If Osmakac was a terrorist, he was only one in his troubled mind and in the minds of ambitious federal agents. The govt could not provide any evidence that he had connections to international terrorists. He didn’t have his own weapons. He didn’t even have enough money to replace the dead battery in his beat-up, green 1994 Honda Accord. 
Osmakac was the target of an elaborately orchestrated FBI sting that involved a paid informant, as well as FBI agents and support staff working on the setup for more than three months. The FBI provided all of the weapons seen in Osmakac’s martyrdom video. The bureau also gave Osmakac the car bomb he allegedly planned to detonate, and even money for a taxi so he could get to where the FBI needed him to go. Osmakac was a deeply disturbed young man, according to several of the psychiatrists and psychologists who examined him before trial. He became a “terrorist” only after the FBI provided the means, opportunity and final prodding necessary to make him one.
It's a familiar tale, fitting a pattern that Aaronson has reported on extensively. In the 2014 documentary The Newburgh Sting, which reveals the sordid details of another FBI-driven plot, former assistant FBI director Thomas Fuentes says the FBI needs to "Keep Fear Alive" in the United States in order to get funding from congress.
 
In the Osmakac case, Aaronson reports, the FBI agents involved seemed to have no illusions about the mental capacity of the man they were working to set-up and arrest.
In other recorded conversations, Richard Worms, the FBI squad supervisor, describes Osmakac as a “retarded fool” who doesn’t have “a pot to piss in.” The agents talk about the prosecutors’ eagerness for a “Hollywood ending” for their sting. They refer to Osmakac’s targets as “wishy-washy,” and his terrorist ambitions as a “pipe-dream scenario.” The transcripts show FBI agents struggled to put $500 in Osmakac’s hands so he could make a down payment on the weapons — something the Justice Department insisted on to demonstrate Osmakac’s capacity for and commitment to terrorism.
The govt argued that these FBI conversations should remain secret, and that their public disclosure "could harm the U.S. government by revealing 'law enforcement investigative strategy and methods,'" Aaronson reports.
 
The FBI's fight to keep these damning statements secret from the public is just another example of govt agencies' deployment of secrecy as a shield to protect not legitimately classified information, but things that could embarrass or reflect poorly on officials. J. Edgar Hoover, the person who shaped the FBI more than any other, was obsessed with secrecy and used it as a tool to carefully shape the Bureau's public image. Had the transcripts of the FBI's conversations about the Osmakac case not been leaked to The Intercept, they would have remained secret.
https://privacysos.org/node/1696