http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=220709
And I want it served with a big, fat, juicy side order of bacon.
Who was it? NAMES folks, NAMES.
The Justice Department is required by its own procedure to obtain the personal approval of the Attorney General before seeking subpoenas or other means of monitoring members of the press and news organizations. This means I want bacon for breakfast as well.
If the DOJ had a valid reason to seek specific information on a specific believed violation of the law that still does not justify the sort of ridiculously broad action that was taken.
This administration uses the Constitution as toilet paper as a matter of course and it is way beyond the point where the people of this nation should stand united and demand that the entire damned lot of them be deposed -- to North Korea.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-13/watergate-was-amatuers-justice-department-spied-months-associated-press-reporters
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/13/2013 17:12 -0400
Bad month for the Obama Administration continues.....
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-05-13/why-liberals-should-be-outraged-irs-targeted-conservatives
Submitted by George Washington on 05/13/2013 14:52 -0400
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-13/house-hearing-irs-gate-be-held-may-17th-submit-questions-here
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/13/2013 15:40 -0400
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/05/12/irs-targeted-groups-that-criticized-the-government-ig-report-says/
I Demand Impeachment For Breakfast
Lawmakers from both parties sharply questioned the Justice Department late Monday over its reported effort to secretly obtain two months of phone records from Associated Press journalists, with House Speaker John Boehner’s office saying “they better have a damned good explanation.”Or what, you pussy? You'll whine and then get on your knees before Obama and wet it again? Exactly how far does Obama's administration have to go giving the middle finger to the rule of law and The Constitution before your puerile, whining, crying panzy-ass will stop talking and start doing your damned job?
The AP disclosed the department’s actions Monday afternoon, revealing that the news service had recently learned the department obtained records listing outgoing calls for the work and personal phone numbers of AP reporters and various AP offices. In all, the government seized the records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012.Who signed off on this and by what process did this happen? This is not enough information -- how does the DOJ "obtain" such records? Someone signed off on the demand -- the subpoena, the NSL, the something that caused those records to be turned over.
Who was it? NAMES folks, NAMES.
The Justice Department is required by its own procedure to obtain the personal approval of the Attorney General before seeking subpoenas or other means of monitoring members of the press and news organizations. This means I want bacon for breakfast as well.
If the DOJ had a valid reason to seek specific information on a specific believed violation of the law that still does not justify the sort of ridiculously broad action that was taken.
This administration uses the Constitution as toilet paper as a matter of course and it is way beyond the point where the people of this nation should stand united and demand that the entire damned lot of them be deposed -- to North Korea.
The Justice Department Secretly Seized AP Phone Records — on a Terror Leak?
Last Friday, the Associated Press received a letter from the Department of Justice informing the news agency that the government had acquired two months of telephone records — incoming number, outgoing number, and call duration — for a more than 20 lines associated with the agency. Among those were phones in the Associated Press offices, personal lines for reporters, and the AP’s phone in the House of Representatives press gallery.
The letter the AP received has not been made public, but it apparently provided no reason for the seizure. According to an article published by the AP, it may relate to a May 2012 article published by the Associated Press revealing an Al-Qaeda bomb plot. That plot, originating in Yemen, was targeted for the anniversary of the death of Osama bin Laden, but was foiled when the device was given to a CIA double agent. The AP broke the story, holding it for several days at the request of the White House. According to the AP, the reporters on that story owned numbers that were among those subpoenaed, indicating that Justice may be trying to identify the source of the leak.
Gary Pruitt, the president and CEO of the AP sent a scathing letter in response to the revelations. Calling it a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” that is “a serious interference with AP’s constitutional rights,” Pruitt writes:
There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the news-gathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations, and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-13/watergate-was-amatuers-justice-department-spied-months-associated-press-reporters
Watergate Was For Amateurs: Justice Department Spied For Months On Associated Press Reporters
- Department of Justice
- FBI
- First Amendment
- FOIA
- Freedom of Information Act
- national security
- None
- Obama Administration
- Testimony
- White House
Update:
* * *
And so the final curtain falls on the myth of what was supposed to be, in its own words, the "most transparent administration" in history.
As it turns out, the big Friday story of Bloomberg journalists snooping on its clients was just amateur hour compared to what the AP was about to serve. In fact, the Watergate affair may soon appear like a walk in the park compared to the First Amendment shitstorm that is about to be unleashed following the just reported news that the US Department of Justice had "secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news."
First amendment? Freedom of speech and press? Surely not when it comes to the Nobel-peace prize winning President and those who dare to expose his secret ways.
And what's worst, is that the AP breach has all the makings of a spiteful hack driven by personal vengeance against one of America's premier news outlets.
We can't wait to see the rest of the not so conservative media stands up in arms and defend one of their peers against an administration whose utter disdain for all checks and balances puts Stalinist Russia to shame. Or perhaps it will be merely a case of "first they came for AP's reporters, and we said nothing..."
And while it has long been known that the NSA actively intercepts and records every single form of electronic communication, the unspoken truth is that the government can do anything it wants as long as it doesn't get caught. It just did, and not only in Benghazi, or the IRS fiasco, but in making a complete mockery of the First Amendment.
As the NSA whistleblower told Wired Magazine over a year ago, “we are this far from a turnkey totalitarian state", all we can add is "we are now in a full-blown totalitarian state."
And nobody cares.
The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news.The records obtained by the Justice Department listed incoming and outgoing calls, and the duration of each call, for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and the main number for AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP.In all, the government seized those records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown but more than 100 journalists work in the offices whose phone records were targeted on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.In a letter of protest sent to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday, AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt said the government sought and obtained information far beyond anything that could be justified by any specific investigation. He demanded the return of the phone records and destruction of all copies."There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP's newsgathering operations, and disclose information about AP's activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know," Pruitt said.The government would not say why it sought the records. U.S. officials have previously said in public testimony that the U.S. attorney in Washington is conducting a criminal investigation into who may have leaked information contained in a May 7, 2012, AP story about a foiled terror plot. The story disclosed details of a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an al-Qaida plot in the spring of 2012 to detonate a bomb on an airplane bound for the United States.In testimony in February, CIA Director John Brennan noted that the FBI had questioned him about whether he was AP's source, which he denied. He called the release of the information to the media about the terror plot an "unauthorized and dangerous disclosure of classified information."Prosecutors have sought phone records from reporters before , but the seizure of records from such a wide array of AP offices, including general AP switchboards numbers and an office-wide shared fax line, is unusual and largely unprecedented.In the letter notifying the AP received Friday, the Justice Department offered no explanation for the seizure, according to Pruitt's letter and attorneys for the AP. The records were presumably obtained from phone companies earlier this year although the government letter did not explain that. None of the information provided by the government to the AP suggested the actual phone conversations were monitored.Among those whose phone numbers were obtained were five reporters and an editor who were involved in the May 7, 2012 story.The Obama administration has aggressively investigated disclosures of classified information to the media and has brought six cases against people suspected of leaking classified information, more than under all previous presidents combined.Justice Department published rules require that subpoenas of records from news organizations must be personally approved by the attorney general but it was not known if that happened in this case. The letter notifying AP that its phone records had been obtained though subpoenas was sent Friday by Ronald Machen, the U.S. attorney in Washington.Spokesmen in Machen's office and at the Justice Department had no immediate comment on Monday.The Justice Department lays out strict rules for efforts to get phone records from news organizations. A subpoena can only be considered after "all reasonable attempts" have been made to get the same information from other sources, the rules say. It was unclear what other steps, in total, the Justice Department has taken to get information in the case.A subpoena to the media must be "as narrowly drawn as possible" and "should be directed at relevant information regarding a limited subject matter and should cover a reasonably limited time period," according to the rules.The reason for these constraints, the department says, is to avoid actions that "might impair the news gathering function" because the government recognizes that "freedom of the press can be no broader than the freedom of reporters to investigate and report the news."News organizations normally are notified in advance that the government wants phone records and enter into negotiations over the desired information. In this case, however, the government, in its letter to the AP, cited an exemption to those rules that holds that prior notification can be waived if such notice, in the exemption's wording, might "pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation."It is unknown whether a judge or a grand jury signed off on the subpoenas.The May 7, 2012, AP story that disclosed details of the CIA operation in Yemen to stop an airliner bomb plot occurred around the one-year anniversary of the May 2, 2011, killing of Osama bin Laden.The plot was significant because the White House had told the public it had "no credible information that terrorist organizations, including al-Qaida, are plotting attacks in the U.S. to coincide with the (May 2) anniversary of bin Laden's death."The AP delayed reporting the story at the request of government officials who said it would jeopardize national security. Once government officials said those concerns were allayed, the AP disclosed the plot because officials said it no longer endangered national security. The Obama administration, however, continued to request that the story be held until the administration could make an official announcement.The May 7 story was written by reporters Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman with contributions from reporters Kimberly Dozier, Eileen Sullivan and Alan Fram. They and their editor, Ted Bridis, were among the journalists whose April-May 2012 phone records were seized by the government.Brennan talked about the AP story and leaks investigation in written testimony to the Senate. "The irresponsible and damaging leak of classified information was made ... when someone informed the Associated Press that the U.S. Government had intercepted an IED (improvised explosive device) that was supposed to be used in an attack and that the U.S. Government currently had that IED in its possession and was analyzing it," he said.He also defended the White House's plan to discuss the plot immediately afterward. "Once someone leaked information about interdiction of the IED and that the IED was actually in our possession, it was imperative to inform the American people consistent with Government policy that there was never any danger to the American people associated with this al-Qa'ida plot," Brennan told senators.
Ah... the illusion of "freedom"
And below is a stock photo of a very busy Eric Holder. Well, at least busy when he is spying on the 4th estate. Not so busy when he is avoiding investigating and prosecuting Too Big To Prosecute bankers for being instrumental in some $15 trillion in global asset transfers from the middle to the upper classes (and counting at a pace of $160 billion per month).
* * *
Finally, in parallel news, following a FOIA request by the ACLU to learn more about the government’s practice of reading people’s email, text messages, social networking feeds and other private electronic communications without a warrant, here is one of "informative" responses the ACLU received back from the "most transparent" Department of Justice.
Bad month for the Obama Administration continues.....
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-05-13/why-liberals-should-be-outraged-irs-targeted-conservatives
Why Liberals Should be Outraged that the IRS Targeted Conservatives
The IRS started targeting Tea Party members, "Patriots" and similar conservatives starting in 2010.
But the IRS' harassment of conservatives expanded way beyond those groups.
As United Press International reports:
U.S. Internal Revenue Service inquiry of conservative groups included those lobbying to "make America a better place to live," new details emerging about the IRS investigation indicated. That lever goes beyond what the IRS admitted Friday, which was that it targeted groups with "Tea Party" or "patriot" in their names, several media outlets reported Monday, based on draft findings from disclosures to congressional investigators by the Treasury Department's inspector general for tax administration.***At various points over the past two years, the Cincinnati IRS office, which is in charge of evaluating applications for tax-exempt status, focused on groups making statements that "criticize how the country is being run" and those involved in educating Americans "on the Constitution and Bill of Rights," the draft report cited by The Washington Post indicated.By June 2011 some IRS specialists were probing applications of groups focusing on "government spending, government debt or taxes [and] education of the public by advocacy/lobbying to 'make America a better place to live,'" the report cited by the Journal indicated.The inspector general's investigation also found the head of the IRS tax-exempt-organizations division knew as early as June 2011 conservative groups were being inappropriately targeted -- several months before Douglas Shulman, IRS commissioner at the time, denied to a congressional committee the agency was targeting conservative groups, the newspapers said
Liberals should not assume that this is the "other guy's" fight.
The targeting of conservatives under a Democratic administration could switch to a targeting of liberals under a subsequent Republican administration.
Congressman Mike Rogers is correct when hesays:
I don't care if you're a conservative, a liberal, a Democrat or a Republican, this should send a chill up your spine.
Remember, governments always target the "out" group first, and - if we don't protest - spread the abuse to include everyone.
It is ironic - and downright Orwellian - that the IRS targeted people trying to educate Americans on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Unfortunately, this is not entirely surprising, given that the Bill of Rights have been fatally wounded by the Bush and Obama administrations, and that liking the Founding Fathers or being “reverent of individual liberty” could get one branded as a potential terrorist.
And the IRS is acting like Big Brother ... spying on our shopping records, travel, social interactions, health records and files from other government investigators. The IRS targeting those who try to educate people about taxes is analogous to the Federal Reserve using web-based counter-espionage to attack critics of Fed policies.
Welcome to modern America ...
Postscript: Those who assume that the Tea Party is made up of a bunch of crazies may be interested in learning that - despite the divide-and-conquer tricks that the mainstream media peddles - the Occupy movement and the Tea Party were originally protesting the exact same things: the malignant, symbiotic relationship between big government and big corporations, and the destruction to our economy caused by the unchecked power of the Federal Reserve.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-13/house-hearing-irs-gate-be-held-may-17th-submit-questions-here
House Hearing On IRS-Gate To Be Held On May 17th - Submit Questions Here
Things are escalating rapidly and the finger-pointing will only grow more violent in the next few days. The House Ways & Means committee has just issued a statement that:
- *HOUSE WAYS & MEANS CMTE TO HOLD HEARING ON IRS ON MAY 17
- *ACTING IRS COMMISSIONER, TAX INSPECTOR GENL TO TESTIFY MAY 17
Should make for some fireworks, lots of 'pleading da fif', and apologies. We just want to make sure all the key questions are asked and answered about this "outrageous" act...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/05/12/irs-targeted-groups-that-criticized-the-government-ig-report-says/
IRS targeted groups that criticized the government, IG report says
At various points over the past two years, Internal Revenue Service officials targeted nonprofit groups that criticized the government and sought to educate Americans about the U.S. Constitution, according to documents in an audit conducted by the agency’s inspector general.
The documents, obtained by The Washington Post from a congressional aide with knowledge of the findings, show that on June 29, 2011, IRS staffers held a briefing with senior agency official Lois G. Lerner in which they described giving special attention to instances where “statements in the case file criticize how the country is being run.” Lerner, who oversees tax-exempt groups for the agency, raised objections and the agency revised its criteria a week later.
But six months later, the IRS applied a new political test to groups that applied for tax-exempt status as “social welfare” groups, the document says. On Jan. 15, 2012 the agency decided to target “political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform movement.,” according to the appendix in the IG report, which was requested by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and has yet to be released.
The new revelations are likely to intensify criticism of the IRS, which has been under fire since agency officials acknowledged they had deliberately targeted groups with “tea party” or “patriot” in their name for heightened scrutiny.
During an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) described the practice as “absolutely chilling” and called on President Obama to condemn the effort.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday he’s not satisfied with the Obama administration’s handling of the controversy. The IG report was “leaked by the IRS. to try to spin the output,” Issa said, and lawmakers now need to go through the full report so they can “see what the instituted changes need to be to make this not happen again.
The agency did not appear to adopt a more neutral test for social welfare groups — which file for tax-exempt status under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code — until May 17, 2012, according to the timeline in the inspector general’s report.
At that point, the IRS again updated its criteria to focus on “organizations with indicators of significant amounts of political campaign intervention (raising questions as to exempt purpose and/or excess private benefit.)”
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/05/13/collins-why-hasnt-obama-spoken-up-about-the-irs-scandal/
Collins: Why hasn’t Obama spoken up about the IRS scandal?
POSTED AT 8:01 AM ON MAY 13, 2013 BY ED MORRISSEY
Susan Collins appeared on CNN’s State of the Union yesterday to address the exploding scandal at the IRS, as many of the other Sunday talk shows focused more on the exploding scandal of Benghazi. Candy Crowley asked Collins, “Is this passing the smell test to you?” Collins scoffed at the explanation given — that this took place only among low-level staffers — and wondered aloud why Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew haven’t apologized for the agency’s targeting of political opponents for more than a year up to the 2012 election.
Come on … you have to ask?
NRO’s Eliana Johnson transcribes Collins’ response, in part:
Maine senator Susan Collins is demanding that Presient Obama publicly apologize for the IRS’s targeting out of conservative groups, calling his failure to do so up to this point “very disappointing.”“It is absolutely chilling that the IRS was singling out conservative groups for extra review and I think that it’s very disappointing that the president hasn’t personally condemned this and spoken out,” she told CNN’s Candy Crowley. “The president needs to make crystal clear that this is totally unacceptable in America.” …“I just don’t buy that this was a couple of rogue IRS employees. After all, groups with ‘prorgressive’ in their names were not targeted, there’s some evidence that higher-level supervisers were aware of this, and the IRS was not forthcoming in telling Congress about this,” she said.
It wasn’t just some low-level staffers; the IRS’ chief counsel knew of the practice by August 2011. The top man in the IRS at the time, Commissioner Douglas Shulman testified to Congress in March 2012 that no such practices were taking place, but it’s almost impossible to imagine that an IRS chief counsel wouldn’t have alerted Shulman before testifying on that very point. If Shulman lied, does anyone – anyone — think Shulman would have done that on his own?
Before you answer that, let’s take a quick trip down Memory Lane, via the Daily Caller:
Just months after being slimed by President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, Mitt Romney supporter and businessman Frank VanderSloot was informed that he was going to be audited not only by the Internal Revenue Service, but by the Labor Department as well.VanderSloot’s saga was told by columnist Kimberley Strassel in the Wall Street Journal last July.In April 2012, VanderSloot, who served as the national co-chair of Mitt Romney’s presidential finance committee, was one of eight Romney backers to be defamed as ”wealthy individuals with less-than-reputable records” in a post on the Obama campaign’s website. The post, entitled “Behind the curtain: a brief history of Romney’s donors,” singled out VanderSloot for being a ”litigious, combative and a bitter foe of the gay rights movement.”Two months later, the IRS informed VanderSloot he and his wife were going to be audited, Strassel reported. Two weeks after that, VanderSloot was notified by the Labor Department that it was going to “audit workers he employs on his Idaho-based cattle ranch under the federal visa program for temporary agriculture workers,” reported Strassel.
Does anyone believe that the orders for that audit came from “low-level staffers”?
Why hasn’t Obama apologized? Because no one would believe it, that’s why.
George Will floats impeachment after IRS targets tea party groups
Conservative columnist George Will on Sunday suggested that President Barack Obama could be impeached after it was revealed that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) targeted tea party groups.
The Associated Press learned last week that the IRS had apologized for what it was an “inappropriate” investigation into whether tea party groups were abusing their tax-exempt status.
“How stupid do they think we are?” Will asked during an ABC News panel on Sunday. “Just imagine… if the George W. Bush administration had IRS underlings, out in Cincinnati of course, saying we’re going to target groups with the word ‘ ‘progressive’ in their title. We would have all hell breaking loose.”
“This is the 40th anniversary of the Watergate summer,” he added, reading a passage from former President Richard Nixon’s articles of impeachment.
He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavoured to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposed not authorized by law, and to cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be intitiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner.
“I think it would be irresponsible to start talking about impeachment over this,” Democratic strategist Donna Brazile replied. “Clearly, there was some incompetence at some level or bureaucrats looking into all these applications in a rush after Citizens United [Supreme Court ruling] to see whether or not they were legitimate organizations with the word ‘tea party’ or ‘patriot’ in it. Yeah, there are progressive patriots as well.”
“Given what George has just said, you better get ready for your audit,” ABC News White House correspondent Jonathan Karl quipped to Will.
“The IRS commissioner was a Republican appointed by [former President George W.] Bush, who his term expired in November,” Brazile pointed out.
There is no evidence that President Obama directed or even knew of the targeting of tea party groups.
Jim Inhofe mulls 'I-word' after Benghazi
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) said the fatal attacks on American diplomats in Benghazi could lead to President Barack Obama’s impeachment during a radio interview Friday.
“People may be starting to use the I-word before too long,” Inhofe said during a discussion of Benghazi on “The Rusty Humphries Show.”
Continue Reading
“I-word meaning ‘impeachment?’” Humphries asked.
“Yeah,” Inhofe said.
Humphries pointed out it was unlikely the Senate would vote to convict Obama even if the GOP-controlled House voted to impeach.
“I understand that,” he said. “I’m not talking about it now. This is something that could last until after the 2014 elections. This is not a short story. … This is clearly an orchestrated cover-up.”
Republicans have been musing, with varying degrees of seriousness, about impeaching Obama almost since his first day in office. Most recently, Reps. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) and Trey Radel (R-Fla.) suggested impeaching the president over his use of executive actions to advance gun control.
Inhofe zeroed in on U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice’s appearance on the Sunday political talk shows following the attack as the impetus for the scandal. During those appearances, Rice acknowledged the presence of “extremists” at the diplomatic compound in Libya, but fingered a poorly made and offensive viral video as the root of the violence.
“They knew that it was a cover-up at that time, the time that it happened,” Inhofe said. “To send Susan Rice out to lie to the American people is one thing that’s going to go down in history, that’s never going to be forgotten.”
Four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, died in the attack. Republicans have spent the past week building up Benghazi as a scandal after the issue faded from the scene in recent months. The House Oversight Committee held a emotional and lengthy hearing on Wednesday and documents outlining the development of Rice’s talking points were leaked to ABC on Friday morning.
Like other Republicans in recent days, Inhofe has taken direct aim at then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, claiming her famous clash with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) at hearing in January was essentially staged by the former First Lady.
“I think that she has gotten by with that sort of forceful attitude,” he said. “It’s something you’re not really accustomed to or hear from women as much as you do men. And she came out so forcefully, and you could tell that it was orchestrated at the time that she said it.”
