Three Former NSA officials say America is a police state

Image credit: Texarkana Gazette

First Bill Binney – the high-level NSA executive who created the agency’s mass surveillance program for digital information, the 32-year NSA veteran widely who was the senior technical director within the agency and managed thousands of NSA employees – told the washingtonblog that America has already become a police state.

Then Thomas Drake – one of the top NSA executives, and Senior Change Leader within the NSA – told the washingtonblog the same thing.

Now Kirk Wiebe – a 32-year NSA veteran who received the Director CIA’s Meritorious Unit Award and the NSA’s Meritorious Civilian Service Award – agrees (tweet via Jesselyn Radack, attorney for many national security whistleblowers, herself a Department of Justice whistleblower):

#Wiebe: we are no longer afraid of the police state happening. It's here. In small ways and big ways. @xposefacts

Two former U.S. Supreme Court Justices have warned that America is sliding into tyranny. A former U.S. President, and many other high-level American officials agree.

A 'white' veteran Canadian reporter says America's police frightens him:

“I don’t mind saying it: America’s police now frighten me,” Macdonald wrote, reflecting on the death of Freddie Gray and the recent riots in Baltimore."

“Their power and their impunity frighten me,” he admitted. “And I’m a white, 58-year-old middle-class man. I can’t imagine what I’d be feeling if I were a black or Latino kid in Baltimore.”

Fidel Castro's Cubans love America but hate the American police state:

"While the Cuban people love America, they absolutely hate the U.S. government, specifically the national-security state branch of the federal government.'

'That notion shocks lots of Americans because for them America and the federal government are one and the same thing. That's why, for example, they equate patriotism with love of the national-security branch of the government, specifically the military."

Rutherford Institute President John Whitehead warns 'we're in a police state now':

The government is watching everything you’re doing,” Whitehead said. “We are in a police state right now. The question is, can we push it back?”

"Why is the military partnering with local police to conduct training drills around the country? And what exactly are they training for? In Richland, South Carolina, for instance, U.S. army special forces participated in joint and secretive exercises and training with local deputies. The public was disallowed from obtaining any information about the purpose of the drills, other than being told that they might be loud and to not be alarmed. The Army and DHS also carried out similar drills and maneuvers involving Black Hawk helicopters in Texas, Florida, and other locations throughout the U.S., ostensibly in order to provide local police with “realistic” urban training."

"What’s the rationale behind turning government agencies into military outposts? There has been a notable buildup in recent years of SWAT teams within non-security-related federal agencies such as Department of Agriculture, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Education Department. As of 2008, “73 federal law enforcement agencies… [employ] approximately 120,000 armed full-time on-duty officers with arrest authority.” Four-fifths of those officers are under the command of either the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or the Department of Justice.'

“They’re [Americans] not getting the news,” Whitehead said. “If you watch just regular television news, you don’t realize there are 80,000 SWAT team raids (each year). There were only 3,000 of those in the early 1980s. There are 80,000 occurring annually now across the United States. Eighty percent of those SWAT team raids are for what we used to call warrant service, where a policeman would come knock on your door.”

A new $29 million police crime lab or 'Public Safety Center Complex' has a 'safe room'!

"The crime lab has a conference room that is also a safe room for the people working in the building."

How does DHS come up with this crap? Referring to police crime labs as 'Public Safety Center Complexes' is a sick joke on the public.

DHS/FEMA's 'Safe Room" definition: "The occupants of a safe room built in accordance with FEMA guidance will have a very high probability of being protected from injury or death."

A govt run building with a "safe room' built into it? Does anyone think the public will be allowed to seek shelter inside? I mean it is called a 'Public Safety Center Complex', RIGHT?

Is the 'safe room' there to protect the employees from natural disasters or are they afraid of civil unrest?

One of Whitehead’s greatest frustrations is Americans’ acceptance of limitations placed on their freedoms and an unwillingness to fight back. He said one of the biggest problems is that most Americans are unaware of how much police are spying on citizens in many different ways.

“How many Americans know that the NSA is now downloading two billion of your emails a day and American citizens’ text messages? They admit to hacking into 160,000 Facebook pages a day to see what you’re doing,” Whitehead said.

"Why is the government amassing names and information on Americans considered to be threats to the nation, and what criteria is the government using for this database? Keep in mind that this personal information is being acquired and kept without warrant or court order. It’s been suggested that in the event of nuclear war, the destruction of the U.S. Government, and the declaration of martial law, this Main Core database, which as of 2008 contained some 8 million names of Americans, would be used by military officials to locate and round up Americans seen as threats to national security, a program to be carried about by the Army and FEMA."
https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/turning_america_into_a_battlefield_a_blueprint_for_locking_down_the_na

Heavily armed soldiers patrolling Baltimore streets!

Americans find out they're living in a police state

 

The Baltimore police and other police depts send officers to Israel for training:

 

While the Baltimore Police Department recruits its manpower outside city limits, its leadership is regularly junketed to training tours in Israel, the occupying power whose hyper-militarized settlers act as some of the Middle East’s most aggressive outside agitators. In September 2009, members of the Baltimore PD “toured [Israel] and met with their Israeli counterparts to exchange information relating to best practices and recent advancements in security and counterterrorism,” according to the trip’s sponsor, Project Interchange. A separate Israel tour organized by the neoconservative Jewish Institute for National Security saw members of the Baltimore PD “begin the process of sharing ‘lessons learned’ in Israel with their law enforcement colleagues in the United States.”

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/04/youd-be-surprised-who-the-outside-agitators-in-baltimore-really-are/

 



Shabazz: Baltimore police are occupiers, like the Israelis:

 

Black Lawyers for Justice President Malik Zulu Shabazz argued that the Baltimore Police Department is an occupying force, like Israel on Tuesday’s “Hannity” on the Fox News Channel.

Shabazz said residents “do not like the National Guard occupying the community. You know that this is a natural antagonism, all of these National Guard here, if they weren’t here, the people wouldn’t even be out here.”

Shabazz  talked about citizens defying the curfew, “don’t they [police] look like the Palestinians going against the Israelis?” He was asked by a reporter, “you’re saying that the Baltimore Police are an occupying force here? what would happen with this neighborhood but for the cops?” He responded, that the police were an occupying force, and that if the police weren’t there, “I don’t think much would happen tonight, to be honest. I really think tonight if they weren’t here, no crowd would be here. You know how Ferguson was. The more armored police show up, the more people want to stay out and challenge them. So, I mean, it’ll work itself out.”

Baltimore has a near 24 hour round-the-clock curfew in place:

 

Pepper spray has been deployed to enforce a citywide curfew in Baltimore, Maryland. While scheduled to be lifted at 5:00am, it will recur nightly for a week. Minors’ movements will be restricted even further. Violating the restrictions is a misdemeanor.

 

WBALTV: Officers will stop people after curfew except for medical conditions and going to/from work.

 

The restrictions are even more severe for the city’s youth, according to Baltimore Councilman Eric Costello.

 

“Youth [curfew] is essentially 24 hours per day,” he tweeted, adding “there are more specifics … which haven’t been released.”

The “additional curfew for minors,” according to a photo tweeted by DailyKos columnist Shaun King. He said that “in addition to the restrictions imposed above, during Other Hours, minors may not be in a public space except: when accompanied by the minor’s parent; when strictly necessary to travel to and from school when required to be at school; and when going to or returning from an official school, religious or other recreational activity supervised by adults and sponsored by the City of Baltimore, a civic organization, or another similar entity that takes responsibility for the minor.”

There is already a citywide curfew in place for Baltimore’s youth ‒ who make up about 21 percent of the city’s population ‒ and it’s considered one of the strictest in the country.

Why is the mass media lying about gangs threatening to kill cops?

 

The mass media has been spreading disinformation and lies. Is it being done to win over public opinion as an excuse to start martial law? The media claimed gangs had banned together to kill cops. This was a bald-faced lie and was obviously created to spread violence and misinformation.

It is our government that's hiring these rioters and they admitted it on Fox News and in the Baltimore Sun. They are admitting that the violence is being done by someone hiring them. Who has the money to hire rioters and thugs? Any guesses? Could it be DHS?

 

Why is the mass media covering-up 10,000-strong peaceful protests in Baltimore?

 

By and large, protests in Baltimore have been peaceful. Whenever and wherever there has been “looting,” it has included black and white alike. At no point has this become a “race riot” as Internet trolls and the mainstream media fear-mongers alike have tried desperately to make us believe.

 

AJ Woodson said: “10,000 people from across the country peacefully protested in Baltimore in support of the seeking of justice of the death of Freddie Gray. Despite the fact that 100 of the 10,000 acted up and approximately 35 people  were arrested after the peaceful protest, (that’s about 1%), much of the mainstream media used attention grabbing words in their headlines like ‘Protest Turns Destructive, (USA Today)’ ‘Scenes of Chaos In Baltimore… (NY Times), Dozens Arrested After Protest Turns Violent (WBAL TV). One website BreitBart.com’s headlines read: 1,000 Black Rioters In Baltimore Smash Police Cars, Attack Motorists In Frenzied Protest.”

Woodson notes that there were over 10,000 people coming together peacefully protesting and only a tiny fraction were actually ever arrested. Most of the alleged “bad behavior” on the 11 o’clock news was being carried out by less than 1% of those protesting. So why did the media chose to focus exclusively on this?
http://countercurrentnews.com/2015/04/media-deliberately-covering-up-10000-strong-peaceful-protests-on-the-streets-of-baltimore/

DHS and Northwestern univ. publish B.S. study claiming teens on drugs will become violent adults

(image credit DHS Scholarships Program)

'Researchers' and I use the term loosely from the ' Northwestern Juvenile Project ' or Northwestern university have such close ties to Homeland Security it should make your blood boil!

By Northwestern's own admission they work for DHS, sorry with the Dept. Of Justice (DOJ). It says so right at the top of their Juvenile Justice Bulletin's. Click here to see how DHS controls the DOJ and much, much more..

'The Northwestern Project' is FUNDED by numerous government agencies that are run by DHS. See the quote below:  

"The Northwestern Project is funded by a consortium of federal agencies and private foundations (e.g., NIH, the Department of Justice, CDC)".

Northwestern offers a 'Master of Science in Homeland Security.' That's right, you can go to college and jump right into spying on Americans and shape our justice system.

Here's a revealing quote from Northwestern's Homeland Security program:

"The DHS Scholarship and Fellowship Program is intended for students interested in pursuing the basic science and technology innovations that can be applied to the DHS mission.  Sophomores apply for the scholarship, while seniors and recent grads apply for the fellowship; eligible fields include physical, mathematical, computer and information, life, or social sciences, as well as psychology."

Why is DHS involved with 'life' and 'social sciences'? According to Wikipedia social sciences studies include" economics, political science, human geography, demography and sociology. In a wider sense, social science also includes among its branches some fields in the humanities such as anthropology, archaeology, history, law and linguistics."

The next time you hear of someone going to a psychologist, archaeologist or historian etc., assume their being trained by DHS!

"Students participate in mentoring and professional development activities with DHS managers and senior leaders from across components."

Click here, here & here to read more about how students can work with DHS/Northwestern.

DHS's 'Juvenile Project' oops, silly me, I mean Northwestern's Juvenile Project has conducted dozens of so-called independent studies being used to justify America's war on drugs.

Just how influential is Northwestern you ask? They INFLUENCE U.S. public health policy, the Supreme Court, congressional hearings and the Surgeon General’s office. See below:

"Health Disparities & Public Policy is a research program in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University. Formerly known as the Psycho-Legal Studies program, the research group changed its name to reflect its focus on health disparities. The program’s studies investigate health needs of traditionally underserved populations such as racial/ethnic minorities, impoverished persons, the homeless, and incarcerated populations. Findings from the group’s studies have shaped US public health policy. Results have been cited in Supreme Court amicus briefs, congressional hearings, and Surgeon General’s reports."

Here's the B.S. study from Northwestern's Juvenile Project:

Please read Northwestern's "Psychiatric Disorders and Violence: A Study of Delinquent Youth After Detention" study with EXTREME skepticism...

"The Northwestern Juvenile Project is a longitudinal study of youth from the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (Chicago, Illinois). Violence and psychiatric disorders were assessed via self-report in 1,659 youth (56% African American, 28% Hispanic, 36% female, aged 13–25 years) interviewed up to 4 times between 3 and 5 years after detention. Using generalized estimating equations and logistic regression, we examined the following: the prevalence of violence 3 and 5 years after detention; the contemporaneous relationships between psychiatric disorders and violence as youth age; and whether the presence of a psychiatric disorder predicts subsequent violence."

While some respondents who had psychiatric illness did report violent behavior, the 'study' found that their behavior was likely influenced by external risk factors that included living in violent neighborhoods.

However, drug addiction among juveniles was associated with an increased rate of future violence, the 'study' found.

“Substance use disorders predicted subsequent violence. Males with other drug use disorder and females with marijuana use disorder three years after detention had greater odds of any violence,” 'researchers' wrote.

"Rates of any violence decreased between 3 and 5 years after detention, from 35% to 21% (males), and from 20% to 17% (females). There was a contemporaneous relationship between disorder and violence."

 Remember these 'studies' are being used to justify America's war on drugs!

New govt report shows how they subverted the constitution so the NSA could spy on everyone

A new report titled "Unclassified report on the president's surveillance program" documents the secret NSA program code-named Stellarwind. The report was a joint project in 2009 by inspectors general for five intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

Mass surveillance of Americans was authorized by President George W. Bush under the ‘President's Surveillance Program’ (PSP).

It was withheld from the public until now!

The U.S. govt released a redacted version to The New York Times in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

The report explains how the Bush administration came to tell the chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks, Royce C. Lamberth, about the program’s existence in early 2002.

James A. Baker, who was the DOJ's top intelligence lawyer, had not been told about the program. The report says he came across “strange, unattributed” language in an application for an ordinary surveillance warrant and figured it out, then insisted on telling Judge Lamberth.

Mr. Baker is now the general counsel to the FBI.

It also says that Mr. Baker developed procedures to make sure that warrant applications using information from Stellarwind went only to the judges who knew about the program: first Judge Lamberth and then his successor, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly.

 

The White House would not let Judge Kollar-Kotelly keep a copy of a letter written by a DOJ lawyer, John C. Yoo, explaining the claimed legal basis of the program, and it rejected a request by Attorney General John Ashcroft to tell his deputy, Larry Thompson, about the program.

 

The report said that the secrecy surrounding the program made it less useful. Very few working-level C.I.A. analysts were told about it. After the warrantless wiretapping part became public, Congress legalized it in 2007; the report said this should have happened earlier to remove “the substantial restrictions placed on FBI agents’ and analysts’ access to and use of program-derived information due to the highly classified status” of Stellarwind.

 

In 2003, after Mr. Yoo left the govt, other DOJ officials read his secret memo approving the program — most of which has not been made public — and concluded that it was flawed.

The FBI analyzed warrantless wiretapping from 2001 till 2004 and came to the conclusion that only 1.2 percent of the data gathered helped in fight against terrorists. Two years later the bureau found no data collected from 2004 till 2006 was useful.

 

In 2004, several DOJ officials confronted Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel at the time, in the hospital room of Mr. Ashcroft over the legality of the program. The officials included Mr. Thompson’s successor as deputy attorney general, James B. Comey, who is now the FBI director, and the new head of the office where Mr. Yoo had worked, Jack Goldsmith.

 

Another part of the newly disclosed report provides an explanation for a change in FBI rules during the Bush administration. Previously, FBI agents had only two types of cases: “preliminary” and “full” investigations. But the Bush administration created a third, lower-level type called an “assessment.”

At this level agents were told to scrutinize phone numbers believed to be suspicious. It was not necessary to explain why the numbers were deemed so. The agents were warned they should “use the information in legal or judicial proceedings.”

Inspectors, who authored the report confessed they “had difficulty evaluating the precise contribution of the PSP to counterterrorism efforts because it was most often viewed as one source among many available analytic and intelligence-gathering tools in these efforts.”

 

This development, it turns out, was a result of Stellarwind. FBI agents were asked to scrutinize phone numbers deemed suspicious because of information from the program. But the agents were not told why the numbers had been deemed suspicious, only “not to use the information in legal or judicial proceedings.”

 

That made some agents uncomfortable, and it was not clear how such mysterious leads fit into their rules for investigations. The DOJ created the new type of investigation, initially called a “threat assessment,” which could be opened with lower-grade tips. Agents now use them tens of thousands of times a year.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/25/us/politics/value-of-nsa-warrantless-spying-is-doubted-in-declassified-reports.html?src=twr&_r=1

Exposing our justice system's close ties to the for-profit prison system

In Idaho, police and the courts along with the prison-industrial complex work hand-in-hand to deliver big profits to for-profit prison corporations by maintaining one of the highest prison populations in the country.

What everyone needs to know abut police 'Stingray' spy equpiment

All across America law enforcement agencies are using a special technology to collect information from your cell phones. What is Stingray technology - how is it used - and why is everyone trying to keep it a secret?

Police can't drag out traffic stops so they can bring in a drug dog

     image credit gerdaus.com

Police may not drag out a traffic stop just to give a drug dog extra time to sniff a vehicle. The Court found that it was unlawful for cops to detain drivers for the sole purpose of conducting a "sniff" test after the traffic stop was completed.

The real reason police want to detain people without 'probable cause' is money.

Supreme Court's decision:

"We hold that a police stop exceeding the time needed to handle the matter for which the stop was made violates the Constitution's shield against unreasonable seizures," Justice Ruth Ginsburg wrote for the 6 to 3 majority. "A seizure justified only by a police-observed traffic violation, therefore, becomes unlawful if it is prolonged beyond the time reasonably required to complete the mission of issuing a ticket for the violation."

“A traffic stop becomes unlawful if prolonged beyond the time in fact needed to complete all traffic-based inquiries,” Ginsberg said.

While “an officer…may conduct certain unrelated checks during an otherwise lawful traffic stop,” Ginsburg held, “a dog sniff, unlike the routine measures just mentioned, is not an ordinary incident of a traffic stop.”

Judges agreed that Dennys Rodriguez was held too long at the side of a Nebraska highway when his Mercury Mountaineer was stopped for allegedly swerving around midnight on March 27, 2012.

FYI, he swerved to avoid a pothole!

Police are trained by DHS to come up with a 'hunch' [excuse] that a person is up to no good. 

As Valley police officer Morgan Struble questioned Rodgiguez, he developed a hunch that the man was up to something. Officer Struble wrote a warning citation and asked if his drug dog could sniff the vehicle. Rodriguez said "no" about 19 minutes into the stop.

Even though he had received the warning citation, Rodriguez was not free to go. He was made to wait about five minutes for a drug dog to arrive and sniff his car. After a few minutes, the dog detected a bag of methamphetamine. Rodriguez was placed under arrest. The question for the high court was whether this eight minute delay for a drug sniff violated the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.

“We can’t keep bending the Fourth Amendment to the resources of law enforcement,” Sotomayor stated. “It’s purely to help the police get more criminals, yes. But then the Fourth Amendment becomes a useless piece of paper.”

"The reasonableness of a seizure, however, depends on what the police in fact do," Justice Ginsburg wrote. "The critical question, then, is not whether the dog sniff occurs before or after the officer issues a ticket... but whether conducting the sniff prolongs -- i.e., adds time to -- the stop."

The ruling purposefully avoids the revenue-generation aspect of modern day policing. The ruling does however green light 'Policing For Profit' or the entire justice system would grind to a halt.

Click here to see how police nationwide have been turned into revenue police.

A D.C. judge is advising citizens to refuse 'VOLUNTARY' police searches based on an officers hunch you might have drugs or a weapon:

 "I do not wish to have an encounter with the police right now. Am I free to leave?” So advises Judge Janice Rogers Brown. “Our jurisprudence perpetuates a fiction of voluntary consent where none exists,” she wrote.

Confronted by police officers in tactical gear who might use a refusal or other reaction as justification to conduct a search anyway, Brown said, the person being questioned in fact had little choice about whether to comply. Police will “have a tough time ignoring it if somebody says that in the future,” said federal public defender A. J. Kramer, referring to the script Brown provided.

The Metropolitan Police Department’s Gun Recovery Unit are allowed to approach people on the street to ask if they are carrying contraband and if they would consent to a search.

DOE/DHS warns of B.S. terror threats to our electric grid

The Department of Energy (DOE) warns in it's new report titled the "Quadrennial Energy Review" that our electric grid is threatened by 'terrorism'. There's the magic word again, mention 'terror' or 'terrorism' and taxpayer dollars come flooding in, while our civil rights get destroyed.

The DOE/DHS suggests that modernization is a must and estimated the cost at updating just the grid of transmission and distribution lines at $900 billion. Add in updating power plants, and the price reaches $2 trillion!

As if on cue MSNBC claims our nations' power grid is under physical or cyber attack every 4 days:

A rational person would say wait a minute, EVERY 4 days someone physically attempts to climb the fence or breach the gate of power stations nationwide? Why isn't this front page news? This is just another example of false-flag reporting with no one asking, is this even real?

A week ago I reported on how the DOE is really DHS and how they're behind putting 'Smart Meter' surveillance meters in every home across the country.  Click here & here to read more.

The DOE/DHS report cited another report from the National Research Center titled, "Terrorism and the Electric Power Delivery System" that fans the flames of an inevitable terror attack on our power grid:

"The electric power delivery system that carries electricity from large central generators to customers could be severely damaged by a small number of well-informed attackers. The system is inherently vulnerable because transmission lines may span hundreds of miles, and many key facilities are unguarded."

"Electric systems are not designed to withstand or quickly recover from damage inflicted simultaneously on multiple components. Such an attack could be carried out by knowledgeable attackers with little risk of detection or interdiction. Further well-planned and coordinated attacks by terrorists could leave the electric power system in a large region of the country at least partially disabled for a very long time."

"Although there are many examples of terrorist and military attacks on power systems elsewhere in the world, at the time of this study international terrorists have shown limited interest in attacking the U.S. power grid. However, that should not be a basis for complacency. Because all parts of the economy, as well as human health and welfare, depend on electricity, the results could be devastating."

In August of last year so-called experts claimed our power grids are under 'imminent' threat by... wait for it... ISIS!

Dr. Peter Pry, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and director of the U.S. Nuclear Strategy Forum, both congressional advisory boards. He also served on the Congressional EMP Commission, the Congressional Strategic Posture Commission, and the House Armed Services Committee.

“There is an imminent threat from ISIS to the national electric grid and not just to a single U.S. city,” said Pry.

Keeping Americans in fear is what's it's all about: 

Pry claimed  “It could happen tomorrow. It could happen next week.” Remember that was in in 2014, almost a year ago. Is it coincidence that when DHS needs more money they invent terror threats?

I haven't even mentioned how DHS invented the EMP terror threat against America's power grid. Which our own military INVENTED! DHS's absurd claim that 9 out 10 Americans would die if 'terrorists' attacked our power grids with EMP's is utter nonsense.

And would you like to venture a guess as to who made this ABSURD claim... anyone? If you guessed Dr. Peter Fry give yourself a gold star!

“Natural EMP from a geomagnetic superstorm, like the 1859 Carrington Event or 1921 Railroad Storm, and nuclear EMP attack from terrorists or rogue states, as practiced by North Korea during the nuclear crisis of 2013, are both existential threats that could kill 9-of-10 Americans through starvation, disease and societal collapse,” the Washington Free Beacon quoted Pry as saying.

It reads like a science fiction novel expect that its real and our mass-media dutifully reports it. The results of these false-flags can be seen across the country with Americans living in constant fear!

This comes from the same organization [DHS] which controls the EPA that claimed our water supply is a terrorist target years ago. Click here & here to read more.

Would anyone like to bet me $1 million that within 3-5 years our government will invent another so-called terror group and claim they are hell-bent on 'terrorizng' America?

U.S. Army General speaks out about the 9/11 false flag event & our govt's role in it

The discussion is between Dane Wigington, former Army Major General Albert Stubblebine, and his wife Dr. Rima Laibow. General Stubblebine is the highest ranking US military official to courageously speak the truth about the 911 false flag event and the US government's role in this unimaginable crime.

This discussion begins with General Stubblebine's process of awakening to the true criminal nature of the US government, then continues on to cover operation "Jade Helm."

Never give police permission to look through your cellphone says former prosecutor

 

I am a criminal defense attorney with the firm Valencia, Ippolito and Bowman in San Jose, California, I am not only a former prosecutor but a former DJ and drummer and an avid festival goer. I combine my two passions (The Law and Music) in my column, “The Festival Lawyer”.

The, “Festival Lawyer” is an ongoing column giving festival goers practical advice about their rights in any encounter with the police. The column also discusses harm reduction and other safety issues relevant to the festival community. My idea  for “The Festival Lawyer explains in less than two minutes” video series is to outline some simple steps you can take to safeguard your Constitutional Rights in a variety of situations. Although geared primarily for festival goers, these tips actually apply to anyone, anywhere.

The first video in my series outlines the five steps you need to take to keep your phone free from unwanted police searches.
 

The "Festival Lawyer Network" is a You Tube channel dedicated to giving festival goers practical advice about their rights in any encounter with the police. I'll also be posting videos about "harm reduction." the drug war and other safety issues relevant to the festival community. They also have a Facebook page.

Download lock screen apps like these to keep police from viewing your cellphone. Click here & here to read more.

Okay so now that you know that you have a new constitutional right, how do you go about protecting it? It’s important to realize that most of the time, cops don’t want to bother with getting a search warrant for a phone. Instead, they will normally just ask the owner to give them permission to search it.

Therefore the simplest tip I can give you is to NEVER give the police permission to search your phone.

I can hear you saying, Never?!  Really? Never? …As in never ever?

Yes, never ever. Or to paraphrase Nigel Tufnel, “None more never”

The  Supreme Court has ruled that it is your absolute and complete right to say “NO’ to a search of a phone. So, a police officer who asks you  for permission to search your phone is basically saying,

“Hi, mind if I violate your Constitutional Rights by rummaging through your personal property?”

Remember, the Supreme Court’s ruling in Riley specifically addresses searches performed during an arrest.  So if you are not under arrest – say you got pulled over for a traffic citation – then the police have even less right to search your phone.

The important point is that if you give the police permission to search your cell phone you can’t later go back and argue about their actions. You’ve waived your right to object. On the other hand, If you refuse, the police can still search the phone, but now they have to justify their search to a judge and show they have probable cause for the search.

That’s why, legally speaking, there  is just no good reason for you to agree to ever let the police go on a “fishing expedition” of ANY of your personal property.

If you are asked if you consent to a search, say clearly and firmly:

“I DO NOT CONSENT TO A SEARCH OF THIS PHONE”
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/prosecutor-teaches-protect-phone-police-2-minutes/

Police/DHS and Motorola are using private surveillance cameras to create a massive spy network

image credit: motorolasolutions.com

When a 911 call comes in, St. Louis police now may be able to see the scene before responding officers have time to arrive.

It’s part of the Real Time Crime Center, opened Thursday to bring together an array of electronic resources — including a network of public and private surveillance cameras!

DHS puppet, St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson said:

“Today is a great day for law enforcement and a bad day for criminals in the city of St. Louis.” That says it all right there, law enforcement considers it a great day, when private corporations work with law enforcement to spy on you. Dotson adds, “Cameras in public space are a part of everyday life. The case study is there, the examples are there, we’re just getting caught up.”

Access to private cameras also means not having to wait for a business to open to examine its recorded images, Lt. Brent Feig said. “We’re really leveraging the public space,” he said.

This is just phase 1 out of 4. Dotson says three phases should be completed by the fall!

The center has access to 140 cameras now, but Dotson envisions a network encompassing the surveillance capabilities of many neighborhood associations and businesses. Chicago police have access to 10,000 cameras, about 3,000 of them publicly owned, the chief said.

John Chasnoff, longtime member of the activist organization Coalition Against Police Crimes and Repression, called it “a spy hub for the whole city of St. Louis.”

“This is a big step toward mass surveillance of the city’s population,” Chasnoff complained. “People going about their business who have given no indication they have committed an offense are still being watched by their government and police.”

What police aren't telling you, is Motorola's 'Real Time Crime Center' is spying on you through numerous platforms:

"Real-Time Intelligence Client brings together streaming video with analytics, resource tracking, social media, voice, Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) and records information onto a single, intuitive interface with geospatial mapping."

And it gets worse:

"The Real-Time Intelligence Client lets analysts prepare and distribute live tactical video, recorded video clips, documents, photos and key information to your officers in the field, and to other agencies for multi-jurisdictional response. Push-a-Link and Push-a Snapshot make it easy to distribute video and photos to dispatched units. Real-time analytics monitor video streams and detect user-defined events of interest – to improve response times by alerting RIC operators to crowd formations, dropped bags and other suspicious behavior as it occurs."

Like many police departments, the St. Louis police use PublicEngines, which ironically was acquired by Motorola Solutions. The combination of 'PublicEngines’ analytics technology and CommandCentral situational awareness tools give police an unmatched platform for spying on citizens

Let's not forget how Raytheon is working with DHS/police to spy on Americans social media and  license plates. Click here, here & here to read more.

Two weeks ago, I wrote an article describing how DHS is using the police to turn America into a giant surveillance state.

The IACP Center has been spying on social media since 2010. "In partnership with the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, the IACP launched its Center for Social Media in October 2010."

The Real-Time Intelligence Client brings together streaming video with analytics, resource tracking, social media, voice, Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) and records information onto a single, intuitive interface with geospatial mapping.

Jeffrey Mittman, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri said: “Now they can follow you, keep data, store it and go back and search through it, so we’re going from what might seem like a benign observance of a public square to a Big Brother 24/7 surveillance society.

The surveillance system already connects with the St. Louis Port Authority, Locust Business District, South Grand Business Association and street department. Donations from the Police Foundation, asset forfeiture money, a DHS/FEMA port security grant in partnership with Motorola Solutions paid for the approximately $435,000 effort.

St. Louis police and Motorola Solutions announced  the integration of a real-time crime center utilizing Motorola Solutions’ Real-Time Intelligence Client, which helps aggregate and correlate data from multiple sources such as video, sensors, alarms, computer-aided dispatch (CAD) and records management systems. 

"It will be 24 hours a day. We'll have analysts here, triaging calls, listening to the police radio, listening to 911 calls, and being able to direct resources ultimately to catch the bad guys, ultimately keep our community safer" said St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson.

Lying police chief Dotson admits to having a close relationship with Motorola and then claims, citizens are demanding surveillance!

"Technology is part of police officers lives and Motorola Solutions technology is providing a platform that interfaces with existing systems and provides officers with more information than ever before," said St. Louis Metropolitan Police Chief Sam Dotson. “In today's technological world officers and citizens are demanding it. Ultimately we have a safer community and focused resources because of the technology."

Police are quoting from an approved DHS media handbook and use bold-faced lies to justify their actions. They claim it's being done in the name of public safety or to fight terror, it's all lies.

Police agencies across the country are using Motorola's Real Time Crime Center:

New York, Chicago, Boston, Houston, New Mexico and Kansas City the list goes on and on but you get the picture. Private corporations and DHS are working together to spy on EVERYONE!

For more info. about Motorola's Real Time Crime Center you should read: "Stay A Step Ahead Of Crime With Instant, Integrated Information."

‘Bloggers’ are compared to ISIS during a congressional hearing

Story originally on infowars.com:

Bloggers, conspiracy theorists and people who challenge establishment narratives on the Internet were all likened to ISIS terrorists during a chilling Congressional hearing which took place yesterday.

The hearing, hosted by the House Foreign Relations Committee, was titled “Confronting Russia’s Weaponization of Information,” and accused Russian state broadcaster RT of weaponizing “conspiracy theories” to spread propaganda.

 

One of the speakers giving testimony was former RT host Liz Wahl, who made a public spectacle of quitting Russian state media last year in an incident stage-managed by neo-con James Kirchick, himself a former employee of Radio Free Europe – a state media outlet.

 

Remarking that the Internet provided a platform for “fringe voices and extremists,” Wahl characterized people who challenge establishment narratives as a “cult”.

“They mobilize and they feel they’re part of some enlightened fight against the establishment….they find a platform to voice their deranged views,” said Wahl.

Referring to comments made in January by US Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) chief Andrew Lack, who characterized RT as a threat on the same level as ISIS and Boko Haram, Wahl said the comparison was justified.

“By using the Internet to mobilize people that feel displaced, that feel like they’ve been on the outskirts of society, and give them a place where they can find a sense of belonging, and maybe make a difference in their own way, and it’s a problem,” she said.

 

Wahl went on to bemoan the fact that conspiracy theorists were “shaping the discussion online, on message boards, on Twitter, on social media,” before asserting that the web had become a beacon of “disinformation, false theories, people that are just trying to make a name for themselves, bloggers or whatever, that have absolutely no accountability for the truth, that are able to rile up a mass amount of people online.”

Bloggers have been under attack by our government for years. The U.S. wants to regulate what 'bloggers' can say. It wasn't until 2014 that 'bloggers' were considered journalists in America.

Click here, here and here to read more.

Every 'blogger' should know their rights, EFF has put together a nice collection of 'Blogger's Rights' on their website.

 

You're more likely to be killed by a cop than a terrorist

Politicians & the public are transfixed by the threat of terrorism. Mention the magic word 'TERROR' and watch the Bill of Rights disappear. Politicians, DHS/police our Dept. of Justice all use the threat of 'terror' to take away our rights. It's all being done for our safety as private companies make huge profits spying on Americans. Our justice system has become a joke. Our government depends on ticketing, fining or arresting Americans to balance budgets.

Click here to see the interactive map showing how cops kill more Americans than terrorists.

Article originally appeared in the Cato Institute blog:

"I picked up the statistic from a blog post called: “Fear of Terror Makes People Stupid,” which in turn cites the National Safety Council for this and lots of other numbers reflecting likelihoods of dying from various causes."

"If you live in the suburbs or a rural area, and especially if you’re wealthy, white, and well-spoken, your likelihood of death from these two sources probably converges somewhat (at very close to zero)."

"If one wants to be clinical about what things reduce death to Americans, one should ask why police officers are such a significant source of danger."

"Cato’s work on the War on Drugs shows how it produces danger to the public and law enforcement both, not to mention loss of privacy and civil liberties, disrespect for law enforcement, disregard of the rule of law, and so on. Is the sum total of mortality and morbidity reduced or increased by the War on Drugs? I don’t know to say. But the War on Drugs certainly increases the danger to innocent people (including law enforcement personnel), where drug legalization would allow harm to naturally concentrate on the people who choose unwisely to use drugs."

"The militarization of law enforcement probably contributes to the danger. Cato’s Botched Paramilitary Police Raids map illustrates the problem of over-aggressive policing. Cato alum Radley Balko now documents these issues at the Huffington Post. Try out his “Cop or Soldier?” quiz."
http://www.cato.org/blog/youre-eight-times-more-likely-be-killed-police-officer-terrorist
https://www.intellihub.com/police-state-interactive-map-shows-cops-kill-more-than-terrorists/

NSA review committee's unanimous report: ‘No significant value’ in mass phone surveillance

University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone spoke Saturday to Drake University Law School students and metro area lawyers about his service on President Barack Obama's review committee of the National Security Agency.

For weeks Stone and the committee interviewed members of different government agencies involved in national security as they compiled a unanimous report regarding the use of phone records to track possible security threats.

Stone said the group found no significant value in the NSA's phone surveillance as it did not prevent any planned terrorist attack or other threats over its six years of existence.

A damning 2013 report about the NSA's phone/email surveillance program showed they have not prevented a single terror plot. The report recommended  "this program should be terminated as soon as reasonably practicable."
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2015/04/11/drake-privacy-symposium/25650493/

Edward Snowden "We've seen U.N. reports say mass surveillance is not permissible!"  

Former prosecutor: Police planting weapons on innocent suspects used to be "standard operating procedure"

Fox legal analyst Arhtur Aidala told the Fox & Friends troika Wednesday morning that planting a weapon on a victim, as Officer Michael Slager is apparently seen to do to Walter Scott in a video released last night, used to be par for the course.

“When I was in the DA’s office in the 80s and 90s, that was standard operating procedures,” Aidala said. “Police officers — I hate to say this — would keep a second gun that nobody knew about on their ankle, so if they ever killed someone they shouldn’t have they would take that gun out –”

“That was before the iPhone and that would not be allowed,” co-host Brian Kilmeade quickly interjected. (Several state legislatures are trying to make it illegal to film police officers, but hey.)

Slager shot Scott fatally during an altercation following a traffic stop Saturday morning. Slager initially said that Scott had tried to grab his taser, but subsequent video showed Scott was actually fleeing, and that Slager appeared to plant the taser next to his body after shooting him.

Aidala thought Slager was done for.

“There’s going to be no sympathy for this police officer, except for the fact that it’s a 33-year-old human being who is getting paid $40,000 to protect his own life and protect everyone else’s life,” Aidala said. “Nobody thinks this cop woke up that morning and said let me go kill somebody. He made split second decisions and they were wrong. Obviously he made wrong decisions. It’s going to be about, in my opinion, how much jail time does he serve.”

Inaccurate police drug testing kits are a 'secret'

The following excerpts are taken from the NHTSA report "Field Test of On-Site Drug Detection Devices".

"We will be evaluating the accuracy of the devices against the most accurate laboratory standard available - GC/MS testing. However, perhaps the key distinguishing feature of this project is that it is a field test. NHTSA and the Center for Human Toxicology have already conducted a thorough laboratory test of the leading on-site drug screening devices. The goal of this project is to assess how well these devices perform when placed in the hands of trained law enforcement personnel as they conduct their routine duties. Techniques that perform well in the laboratory may falter when brought into the "real world" of law enforcement. The research will evaluate how law enforcement officers can use these screening devices as supporting evidence in the detection of drugs in the driving population."

Did you catch that? The NHTSA claims its a 'field test' so it's not really accurate and police officer 'techniques' may falter. What they're really saying is they aren't reliable!

There is not a single reputable laboratory or governmental agency which has been able to establish what the critical level of THC is that constitutes impairment.

The Southwestern School of Law say's they shouldn't even be allowed in our courts.

Below is an excerpt from the study:

"A preliminary test is not equivalent to an actual positive identification, and this important difference will be discussed in more detail later. In short, a preliminary test only actually tests for “possible presence or absence of a particular molecular grouping.” Thus, the tests are useful to determine if a substance is not present or if further identification tests are warranted."

The NHTSA goes on to claim:

"The field test will also allow us to assess how the on-site screening devices can provide additional information for the Drug Evaluation and Classification (DEC) program. DEC officers in the participating sites will assist the project staff in the evaluation of the on-site devices. However, this project will not evaluate the performance of the DEC officers. At the sites, trained Drug Recognition Experts will conduct DEC assessments on DUI and DUID suspects and will also conduct some of the on-site drug testing devices."

Police officers who suspect, but may not be able to prove with certainty, a driver is under the influence of something other than alcohol have the option of calling a DRE. The evaluation process has similarities to a drunken driving test, but it “takes it a little further” according to Sgt. Mark Bliss of the Scotts Bluff County Sheriff’s Department.

“There are not enough DREs. We could always use more,” said Becky Stinson, the coordinator of the DRE program for the Office of Highway Safety.

Police are NOT 'Drug Recognition Experts' it's a lie and it got its start by police officers from Calif. inventing ways to make more money by using unscientific methods to detect what drug a person is on by observing a person's pupil dilations. Click here, here, & here to read more.

"Two LAPD sergeants collaborated with various medical doctors, research psychologists, and other medical professionals to develop a simple, standardized procedure for recognizing drug influence and impairment. Their efforts culminated in the development of a multi-step protocol and the first DRE program."

There are currently more than 6,300 active DREs in the United States.  There are also more than 500 in Canada.  Other countries are also starting to train DREs, including China, Australia, Germany and the Virgin Islands.

If you guessed Homeland Security is behind DRE's give yourself a gold star. The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) is the regulating and certifying organization for the DRE program. The IACP works hand-in-hand with DHS.

Click here, here and here to read more.

NHTSA tells police to keep the results of the 'field test' a secret:

"The Research Analyst will have confidential information about the participant to which they would not normally have access. Your protection of all information about participants gained during the conduct of research is, therefore, essential. We have promised participants that we will not reveal the results of their tests (unless they provide their consent). Participants' data will be combined with those of others in the data collection and the results will be reported as group percentages and totals in such a way that no participants name could be associated with any results."

"IT IS YOUR DUTY TO KEEP THE PROMISE OF CONFIDENTIALITY. NEVER TELL FACTS ABOUT, OR REVEAL INFORMATION ABOUT ANY PARTICIPANT. Information or results collected during the study can be shared only with the research team, whose members are under the same ethical and moral duty to the people interviewed as you are."

Marijuana breathalyzers & drug testing field kits lead to many false positives. Click here, here & here to read more.

There is no marijuana breathalyzer, so how can police tell if a driver is high?

Inaccurate police field tests put two people in jail for a month.

In Minnesota a man spent months in jail on drug possession charges after police mistook a half-ounce bag of vitamin powder for drugs.

A search of his car turned up a small bag of powder that police believed were illegal drugs. They conducted a field test, which came back positive for amphetamine and Burrell was charged with two felony counts of drug possession.

“I told the judge I couldn’t plead guilty to something I knew wasn’t a drug,” Burrell said, according to the Mankato Free Press. The judge set his bail at $250,000.

The Washingtonpost posted a partial list of false positives that drug testing kits have claimed to be drugs:

Sage

Chocolate chip cookies

Motor oil

Spearmint

Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap

Tortilla dough

Deodorant

Billiards chalk

Patchouli

Flour

Eucalyptus

Breath mints

Loose-leaf tea

Jolly Ranchers

Police State America: Florida police dress like the military & pull you over in tanks

 

Story originally appeared in informationliberation:

 

 A 23-year-old Florida man was pulled over by camouflaged deputies in an armored car after he had flipped them off with his middle finger Saturday.

Lucas Jewell said he was angry that Alachua County sheriff’s deputies were turning his town into a Baghdad-like military zone.

After all, Gainesville is a college town mostly filled with University of Florida students.

Here's Jewell's live interview:

But deputies felt the need to dress up like soldiers because it was Orange & Blue, a three-day celebration of festivities highlighted by a scrimmage football game between Florida Gator teammates that was free and open to all ages.

Police got pissed because a citizen dared to flip them off! Contempt of cop rarely goes unpunished, especially when police are empowered with federally funded military gear.

Rather than respecting his First Amendment right to express himself, they pulled him over in the armored car on the basis that he made an “improper hand signal” when he flipped them off.

After their “investigation” in which they threatened to handcuff, keeping him detained for almost 30 minutes, they released him with a warning for the improper hand signal. The statute he allegedly violated is posted below:

Although it's legal to flip cops off, many courts & police work together to rob you of your rights.

DHS is influencing America's TV shows, movies, electric cars and much more!

DHS claims its "PATRIOTIC" to influence TV shows, movies, invest in sports centers, casinos, shopping malls, rest homes and more!

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) inspector general has released hundreds of pages of emails plus other documents in support of its investigation of improper influence on the EB-5 immigration program. Many of the documents discuss hundreds of millions of dollars in financing for film and television productions from Sony Pictures and Time Warner with prominent politicians including former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendall and the office of former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa interjecting in an effort to get approvals. We [DHS] were also told he was exerting influence to give these individuals preference and access not available to others.

The No. 2 official at DHS Alejandro Mayorkas improperly intervened on behalf of foreign investors seeking U.S. visas in three cases involving prominent Democrats, including a company run by the youngest brother of  presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

In 2009, Lionsgate was denied funding from EB-5 investors because it was determined that the studio was not legally obligated to accept the funding.

After a whistleblower stepped forward, DHS's inspector general looked into whether Mayorkas, former director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, gave special treatment to politically-connected applicants and exerted improper influence in the adjudication of the EB-5 program. A core part of the investigation looked into Mayorkas' order reversing a decision denying funding of Sony movie projects. He's also said to have handpicked a review board to review a separate series of Time Warner movie projects.

"Mr. Mayorkas ordered that a USCIS decision to deny a proposal to fund a series of Sony movie projects in Los Angeles be reversed after he was in contact with politically prominent stakeholders associated with the venture. Mr. Mayorkas later created a “deference review board,” staffed with individuals he handpicked, to review a separate series of Time Warner movie projects."

WTF? DHS is reviewing movie projects?

An ABC News investigation that aired last month, which found that officials in the Department of Homeland Security had ignored pointed warnings from federal agents and approved visas for immigrants suspected of having committed fraud, money laundering, and even one applicant with alleged ties to a child porn website. Several of those cases involved investment projects whose executives had sought and received help from powerful political figures to lobby Mayorkas for support.

DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson said there were lessons to be learned in the inspector general's investigation but described Mayorkas in a statement as "exceptionally conscientious, honest and patriotic."

"He is often impatient with our sluggish government bureaucracy, can at times be very hands-on in resolving issues and problems that are brought to his personal attention, and is always mindful that we are public servants," Johnson said. "Ali works hard to do the right thing, and never acts, in my observation, for reasons of personal advancement or aggrandizement."

Those two statements should put to rest any pretense of a real DHS investigation. They called his actions 'PATRIOTIC"!

The following quotes were taken from DHS's "Investigation into Employee Complaints about Management of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' EB-5 Program"

"We [DHS] made several attempts to interview key external EB-5 stakeholders, many of whom declined to speak with us."

The nerve of 'stakeholders' declining to speak to DHS on record! When the shoe's on the other foot, and they're wink, wink being investigated by DHS they decline to comment. If you think it was a real investigation, I have a bridge to sell you in Arizona.

"We [DHS] found that employees’ belief that Mr. Mayorkas favored certain politically powerful EB-5 stakeholders was reasonable."

Of course Mayorkas (DHS) did, 'powerful stakeholders created and continue to fund DHS!

Late last month, a report about the investigation was released. The report's discussion on how Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid intervened over some Las Vegas projects and how Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe interjected for an ELECTRIC CAR COMPANY commanded the most press attention, but the report also dealt with the proposed projects involving Lionsgate, Sony and Time Warner.

"At the request of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Mr. Mayorkas intervened to allow expedited review of investor petitions involved in funding a Las Vegas hotel and casino, notwithstanding the career staff’s original decision not to do so. The career staff noted that the purported urgency was of the applicant’s own making and that the decision to expedite fell outside EB-5 program guidelines. Nevertheless, Mr. Mayorkas pressured staff to expedite the review. He also took the extraordinary step of requiring staff to brief Senator Reid’s staff on a weekly basis for several months."

Question: If Harry Reid is working for DHS, doesn't the above statement show they're involved in hotels & casinos?

 

"Gulf Coast Funds Management Regional Center: Mr. Mayorkas intervened in an administrative appeal related to the denial of a regional center’s application to receive EB-5 funding to manufacture electric cars through investments in a company in which Terry McAuliffe was the board chairman. This intervention was unprecedented and, because of the political prominence of the individuals involved, as well as USCIS’ traditional deference to its administrative appeals process, staff perceived it as politically motivated."

"Many employees concluded, not unreasonably, that the pressure exerted on them was because the individuals involved were politically connected."

"We [DHS] were unable to determine Mr. Mayorkas’ motives for his actions. In each instance he recollected, Mr. Mayorkas asserted that he intervened to improve the EB-5 process or to prevent error. As a result, he claimed that he took a hands-on approach when a case warranted his personal involvement. Mr. Mayorkas told us that his sole motivation for such involvement was to strengthen the integrity of the program; he said he had no interest in whether a particular application or petition was approved."

Mr. Mayorkas told us (DHS) in his interview that he could not recall the basis of his initial concerns about the LA Films III denial, but noted that the case involved a "financing" issue. How convenient the number 2 guy at DHS denies then forgets everything!

"Each DHS employee conveyed the same factual scenario: certain applicants and stakeholders received preferential access to DHS leadership and preferential treatment in either the handling of their application or petition or regarding the merits of the application or petition."

By DHS's own admission, employees are afraid to speak out, for fear they'll be arrested:

"The number and variety of witnesses is highly unusual. It is also quite unusual that a significant percentage of the witnesses we interviewed would talk to us only after being assured that their identities would remain confidential. Being a whistleblower is seen to be hazardous in the Federal Government."

Las Vegas Regional Center (LVRC) Approved as a Regional Center:

 

Since 2010 DHS has been investing in "10 industry economic clusters: hotel, manufacturing, retail shopping centers, restaurant, casino, general retail, office, medical office, assisted living/nursing home, and sports and recreation centers."
 

"On September 29, 2009, the LVRC filed an application with USCIS for recognition as a regional center. According to the proposal, the regional center planned to focus its investments in new commercial enterprises in 10 industry economic clusters: hotel, manufacturing, retail shopping centers, restaurant, casino, general retail, office, medical office, assisted living/nursing home, and sports and recreation centers. USCIS approved the application on May 27, 2010." (this information can be found on page 15 of the DHS report.)

"On October 2, 2012, the first investor petition related to a proposal for about 230 investors to partially fund SLS, an LVRC project, arrived at USCIS. Other investor petitions followed."

"About two months after individual SLS investors started filing petitions, USCIS began receiving congressional inquiries about the petitions. On December 5, 2012, a member of Senator Harry Reid’s staff emailed USCIS’ Office of Legislative Affairs asking whether USCIS could expedite processing of the SLS investor petitions. By granting expedited processing, SLS petitions would move ahead of previously filed petitions. [MOA-0001773-1774]"

"Senator Reid’s staff member asserted that the SLS investor petitions needed expedited processing because the terms of the bank financing for SLS required that 10 percent of all visas for the project be approved by mid-January 2013. Failure to do so would result in losing the financing for the project."

 

"At that time, 25 investor petitions had been submitted, with an additional 205 to follow. The staff member indicated that the project had already received a number of local government permits for construction, at a cost of several hundred thousand dollars, which would expire in January. The staff member forwarded correspondence to USCIS from LVRC claiming that submission of the SLS petitions had been delayed because of potential changes to USCIS’ policy on tenant occupancy.18 [EM-0000509], [MOA-0001777]"

 

(18 - On December 20, 2012, USCIS finalized new tenant occupancy guidance. Normally, USCIS requires evidence from an investor that a specific amount of investment is connected to new jobs created by prospective tenants of its commercial spaces. Under the revised guidance, the investor would not have to connect a specific amount to new jobs, but would get credit for job creation if it could demonstrate that the economic benefits of the project would remove “a significant market-based constraint.”)

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/homeland-security-releases-emails-showing-787829

For more info read these two stories: "The $500,00 Green Card, how spies, criminals and terrorist buy their way into America.", Whistleblowers: US gave visas to suspected forgers, fraudsters criminals.