http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-11/nsa-fan-feinstein-slams-cia-spying-and-intimidation
NSA-Fan Feinstein Slams CIA Spying And Intimidation
Having been vociferous over her support for the NSA's domestic espionage programs, we couldn't help but see the ironic hypocrisy of Senator Diane Feinstein's accusations that the CIA secretly removed documents from computers used by her panel to investigate a controversial interrogation program. As WaPo reports, Feinstein "is not taking lightly" the fact that the CIA appears to have violated the Fourth Amendment, which bars unreasonable searches and seizures, as well as various federal laws and a presidential executive order that prevents the agency from conducting domestic searches and surveillance. President Obama has since expressed "great confidence" in CIA chief John Brennan (unless of course he crossed a red line).
The irony and hypocrisy begins... (Via WaPo),
The head of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday sharply accused the CIA of violating federal law and undermining the constitutional principle of congressional oversight as she detailed publicly for the first time how the agency secretly removed documents from computers used by her panel to investigate a controversial interrogation program.Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said that the situation amounted to attempted intimidation of congressional investigators, adding: “I am not taking it lightly.”...She confirmed that an internal agency investigation of the action has been referred to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution. And she said that the CIA appears to have violated the Fourth Amendment, which bars unreasonable searches and seizures, as well as various federal laws and a presidential executive order that prevents the agency from conducting domestic searches and surveillance.She has sought an apology and recognition that the CIA search of the committee’s computers was inappropriate, she said. “I have received neither,” she added.
CIA chief Brennan is defending his agency's role:
the agency did nothing wrong and “has tried to work as collaboratively as possible” with the Senate committee. He said he would defer to a Justice Department investigation and wait for the facts to come out.Brennan said he wants any historical record of the program to be accurate and balanced and said the CIA was not trying to thwart its progression or release.“The CIA agrees with many findings in the report and disagrees with others,” he said.Asked if he would resign if the CIA was found to be in the wrong, Brennan said he would let the president decide his fate.“If I did something wrong, I will go to the president,” the CIA director said. “He is the one who can ask me to stay or to go.”
And in response to this:
- WHITE HOUSE SAYS PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA HAS "GREAT CONFIDENCE" IN CIA CHIEF
- JOHN BRENNAN EVEN AS KEY SENATOR ACCUSES AGENCY OF SPYING ON CONGRESS
And......
and.....
http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/world/nsa-chief-seeks-to-end-free-press/article/375272
Op-Ed: NSA chief seeks to end free press
Outgoing National Security Agency boss, Keith Alexander, advocated making it a crime to report on government leaks this week, and said that legislation to accomplish this was coming in weeks.
While addressing a cyber-security panel, Alexander lashed out at the media and said that legislation making it a crime to report on government leaks would reach congress within weeks. Perhaps the most telling quote came from Alexander, when he discussed what could be accomplished once the free press was gagged.
Cyber legislation has been defeated every time it has been introduced. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) were crippled after activists came from all corners of the internet to call, email, and generally harass members of congress. This statement goes well beyond ramming a bill through congress that lawmakers know the people do not want.
Publicly, the statements about legislation pertaining to media leaks have always been qualified by the statement that they would only pertain to journalists reporting on national security issues. It’s clear to see that Alexander’s proposed legislation will do much more than that. He believes that by passing legislation barring reporters from covering national security issues that cyber legislation will be easier to pass. Perhaps the bill would make national security related legislation illegal to report on. Make no mistake; this bill will be a full frontal assault on what’s left of the free press in the United States.
More importantly, everyone involved knows that such a bill would be completely worthless at stopping leaks from being made public. In fact, a U.S. law barring reporters from disclosing leaks would not have even stopped the Snowden leaks. The Guardian isn’t in the United States. Contrary to the beliefs of many in Washington, the United States does not have jurisdiction over the whole world. Bills like this would only lead to more refugees like Snowden fleeing the country and turning those documents over to foreign news agencies. So even if the U.S. passed such a law and stopped domestic news services from reporting on the leaks, the information would still widely be available on the internet, unless of course, the cyber legislation that Alexander seeks would allow the NSA to censor what it deems unfit for the American people.
Those at the NSA have repeatedly said that Snowden’s leaks have made their jobs harder. Perhaps they should note that it was never their job to spy on the American people. The job of the agency is spying on foreign nationals that are a threat to the United States and its allies. The NSA shouldn’t have been accessing phone records, personal photos, emails, and video chats of Americans to begin with.
Another unintentional effect of the stifling of the free press would be a limit on discourse in the United States. Public discourse is the mechanism by which peaceful change occurs. When public discourse is stifled, those seeking to make a change are left with only one option. President John F. Kennedy said
When the public can no longer trust that the truth is being told, and when the blatant abuses of power from government become too much for the society to bear, that society lashes out in violence. Peaceful protests in Ukraine turned to violent action when the government outlawed public dissent. Government control of the media leads the nation down a road that only ends in war, death, and eventually revolution. There is no example in all of recorded history where a free nation existed without a free press.
The agency that uses the rationale of “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear” is so afraid of the American people learning of its activities that it seeks to end free access to information. This is the same agency that promises to only seek to limit the press in matters of national security.
Consider what the government has deemed matters of national security in the past. Martin Luther King, Jr. was spied upon by the NSA. The documents proving it were released just last year. They were kept in secret for decades but can now be viewed in the National Security Archive. Folders full of documents about King are still held in secret for national security reasons. Perhaps they have something to do with the 1999 verdict in federal court that found that King was killed by a conspiracy including government agencies. A juror said after the trial
Due to the lengthy history of nefarious deeds conducted against American citizens in the name of “national security,” it would be a nationwide suicide for the people of the United States to grant such a power to the government. On the collective suicide of free states, John Adams said
The United States has fallen so far from the free nation its founders envisioned that the people who are entrusted with the power to endanger public liberty openly advocate to remove our right to know of their conduct.
For those that have watched with an eye toward history all of the events that have unfolded in the United States since 2001, the only silver lining to the cloud of tyranny beginning to form over the United States is the fact that this action by the government may awaken people to the shaded darkness approaching and forge a new leader that can peacefully restore the liberties this nation once had. If not, though the revolution may not be televised, it will certainly be online.
I think we are going to make headway over the next few weeks on media leaks. I am an optimist. I think if we make the right steps on the media leaks legislation, then cyber legislation will be a lot easier.
4Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
We all thought it was a cut and dried case with the evidence that Mr. Pepper brought to us, that there were a lot of people involved, everyone from the C.I.A., military involvement, and Jowers was involved.
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing. Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the People, who have... a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean the characters and conduct of their rulers. There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free 'government' ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty. Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among people.
http://www.infowars.com/michelle-obama-supports-campaign-to-ban-sexist-words/
Language Police: FLOTUS channels Orwell’s 1984
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
March 11, 2014
Infowars.com
March 11, 2014
Taking a page out of George Orwell’s 1984 - where words were banned by a totalitarian state to limit thought – Michelle Obama has thrown her weight behind a campaign to ban the word “bossy”.
FLOTUS tweeted her support for the campaign, which is receiving national media attention having been backed by celebrities such as Beyonce. Apparently, Beyonce (as well as Sony Entertainment which also supports the campaign) isn’t too concerned about the fact that her husband – and the Obama’s close personal friend Jay-Z - routinely refers to women as “bitches” and all kinds of other vulgarities in his songs.
Critics immediately shot back at Obama for lending her support to such a chilling notion, making comparisons to Orwell’s infamous ‘Ingsoc’.
“Girls are less interested in leadership than boys and that’s because they worried about being called bossy,” claims the campaign video. The solution is to ban the word altogether by encouraging parents, employers and teachers to strip it from their vocabulary and re-educate any poor unsuspecting bigot who dares utter it in public.
Illustrating once more how feminism is a top-down tool of cultural marxism – where language and culture takes the blame for all oppression thereby absolving the state, which is the true source of oppression – the campaign is the work of LeanIn.org, which itself is supported by a plethora of big banks, transnational corporations and PR firms.
Second wave feminism does little or nothing to advance genuine women’s right concerns – such as the recent designation of female drivers as potential terrorists in Saudi Arabia – and everything to hide behind the veil of equality as a justification for trampling on everyone’s free speech rights.
Given that literature is replete with examples of sexist, patriarchal and outdated language, forget just banning words, why don’t we start burning books? It’s for the children!
Mainstream feminism’s disdain for free speech is setting the stage for Hillary Clinton’s tilt at the presidency in 2016, which is why top Democratic Party operates like Debbie Wasserman Schultz are also backing these kind of PR campaigns.
Just as critics of Obama were labeled racists for questioning his policies, Hillary’s detractors will be smeared with the “sexist” tag when they dare to speak out.
The ‘ban bossy’ campaign video, featured below, is fast being overtaken by negative comments as the whole farce is rightly condemned for what it is – an onerous attempt to set a dangerous precedent of banning words and restricting free speech in order to fix non-issues contrived by cultural marxists.
Then again, I may just be a sexist thought criminal who needs to be re-educated and have his vocabulary forcibly reduced by means of a full frontal lobotomy – after all, it’s trendy and liberal!
Homeland Security Snipers Terrorize Confused Residents During Raid
DHS agents train weapons on innocent neighbors
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
March 11, 2014
Infowars.com
March 11, 2014
Department of Homeland Security snipers trained their weapons on frightened residents during a raid on a nearby apartment in East Williamsburg, with neighbors complaining of how they were “utterly confused and frankly terrorized” during the incident.
The combined federal/NYPD drugs bust started in the early hours of Sunday morning when a low flying helicopter startled East Williamsburg and Bushwick residents, before streets were blocked off, preventing people from going home.
“Witnesses spotted a big Department of Homeland Security truck as well as DHS agents toting machine guns as they raided 221 Devoe Street,” reports the Gothamist.
While the raid unfolded, DHS snipers aimed their guns at residents in nearby buildings, causing panic and confusion. “I literally had a flashlight-gun pointed at me from a sniper on top of the black armored truck the first time I opened our window to see what was going on,” said one neighbor.
“What woke us up was a cop yelling ‘POLICE!’ outside and hearing some sort of scream,” he added. “Then I noticed the flashing lights of the armored black truck so I peeped out the window. There were two snipers on top of the armored truck with flashlight-guns and one of them pointed at me immediately. If I was them and I was doing my job, I probably would have pointed it at me, too, but at the same I wasn’t even in the building they were looking at. He immediately pointed it away but needless to say, I was terrified because I could have been picked off instantly.”
DHS officials admitted that they were involved in the raid but declined to elaborate, while the NYPD had no comment.
The increasing militarization of the Department of Homeland Security and its closer ties with local police departments has stoked increasing concerns that the war on drugs is being used as an excuse to turn America into a police state.
View more images of the raid courtesy of HB/Gothamist below.
Obama NSA Nominee Defends Mass Surveillance Of Americans
“I believe that we need to maintain an ability to make queries of phone records”
Steve Watson
Infowars.com
March 11, 2014
Steve Watson
Infowars.com
March 11, 2014
The president’s “reforms” of the NSA continue apace, as his pick to become the new head of the agency today defended mass spying on Americans, saying it is necessary to prevent terrorist attacks.
Responding to questions from Senators, Vice Admiral Michael Rogers stated that it is imperative that the NSA have access to vast amounts of metadata, in order that the government can keep Americans safe.
Rogers argued that section 215 of the Patriot Act should remain intact and the spooks should not be hindered from using it to justify mass surveillance.
“The telephone metadata program under Section 215 was designed to map the communications of terrorists so we can see who they may be in contact with as quickly as possible,” Rogers said.
While making insignificant noises about “welcoming a dialogue” on “transparency”, a now empty promise that Americans have heard ad infinitum from the administration, Rogers essentially defended the NSA’s programs and said the status quo should be maintained.
“I believe that we need to maintain an ability to make queries of phone records in a way that is agile and provides results in a timely fashion. Being able to quickly review phone connections associated with terrorists to assess whether a network exists is critical.” he stated.
Rogers added that the most difficult task he faces is to convince Americans the government has their best interests at heart.
“how do we engage the American people, and by extension, their representatives, in a dialogue in which they have a level of comfort as to what we are doing and why.” Rogers said.
He also claimed that it would be possible to effectively outsource the surveillance program to have telcoms maintain the database of communications data, as suggested by Obama as part of the “reform” process.
“I believe, sir, with the right construct, we can make that work,” Rogers said in response to a question from Senator Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate panel.
Senators Mark Udall and Ted Cruz pressed Rogers during the hearing, pushing for an assurance that he would seek to end bulk phone records collection. Of course, it was not forthcoming:
Critics have jumped on Rogers’ nomination for NSA head, charging that he represents continuity for the NSA rather than any meaningful change.
“Right now, we don’t know a lot about Mike Rogers, but the little we do know suggests he is not a reform candidate at all, but more of the same,” said Trevor Timm, executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
“It’s a shame President Obama didn’t use this opportunity to appoint an NSA chief that can better calibrate Americans’ growing privacy concerns against the NSA’s current goal to ‘collect it all.’”
Back in January, Obama promised to rein in the NSA, while at the same time going out of his way to justify its actions by ludicrously comparing the agency to Paul Revere.
To virtually no one’s surprise, the president’s “reforms” are not designed to stop NSA’s mass spying, and this was immediately evident in the opening remarks of the January speech when he attempted to argue that in times of war, the US has always used surveillance to secure freedom.
The president has recruited a gaggle of his own insiders to probe the NSA, including John Podesta, head of the White House front group The Center for American Progress, and Cass Sunstein, the former White House information czar.
Meanwhile the House and Senate Intelligence committees, which are supposed to operate as oversight watchdogs of government spy agencies, have, in the words of Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr., the man who authored the original PATRIOT Act of 2001, become “cheerleaders” for the NSA.
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