By Sharyl Attkisson
CBS News
Documents obtained by CBS News show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discussed using their covert operation “Fast and Furious” to argue for controversial new rules about gun sales. PICTURES: ATF “Gunwalking” scandal timeline
Continue reading “ATF Used “Fast and Furious” To Make The Case For Gun Regulations” »
by Jack Minor
Greeley Gazette
While the Obama administration said it is committed to gun rights, a gun control advocate has spilled the beans, saying Obama is using stealth to work on firearms restrictions.
Continue reading “Obama Still Working on Gun Control Under the Radar” »
by Jim Abrams
Huffington Post
WASHINGTON — Minutes before a midnight deadline, President Barack Obama signed into law a four-year extension of post-Sept. 11 powers to search records and conduct roving wiretaps in pursuit of terrorists.
“It’s an important tool for us to continue dealing with an ongoing terrorist threat,” Obama said Friday after a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
With Obama in France, the White House said the president used an autopen machine that holds a pen and signs his actual signature. It is only used with proper authorization of the president.
Congress sent the bill to the president with only hours to go on Thursday before the provisions expired at midnight. Votes taken in rapid succession in the Senate and House came after lawmakers rejected attempts to temper the law enforcement powers to ensure that individual liberties are not abused.
Continue reading “Congress Renews Anti-Constitutional Patriot Act” »
BLACKSBURG, S.C. — The Rutherford Institute has come to the defense of a 73-year-old Virginia resident who was allegedly ordered by a park ranger to remove his car from a national military park in South Carolina because of political messages attached to his vehicle. Jack Faw, whose ancestors fought in the historic battle memorialized at Kings Mountain National Military Park, contacted The Rutherford Institute after being told by a park ranger that the decal promoting a political organization associated with Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), which was displayed on the back window of Faw’s car, was not allowed in the park. In a legal letter to Park officials, constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead warned that the ranger’s directive, which resulted in Faw being forced to leave the park, violated Faw’s First Amendment rights, as well as National Park Service regulations. Whitehead also demanded assurances that Park employees will be properly instructed in how to respect the constitutional rights of visitors to the Park so that Faw and others will not face similar restrictions in the future.
Continue reading “Ranger Orders Visitor to Leave Because of Ron Paul Stickers” »
By Spencer Ackerman
Wired
You may think you understand how the Patriot Act allows the government to spy on its citizens. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) says it’s worse than you’ve heard.
Congress is set to reauthorize three controversial provisions of the surveillance law as early as Thursday. But Wyden says that what Congress will renew is a mere fig leaf for a far broader legal interpretation of the Patriot Act that the government keeps to itself — entirely in secret. Worse, there are hints that the government uses this secret interpretation to gather what one Patriot-watcher calls a “dragnet” for massive amounts of information on private citizens; the government portrays its data-collection efforts much differently.
Continue reading “Senator Says There’s a Secret Patriot Act” »
By Tom Burghardt
Black Listed News
Despite last week’s “termination” of America’s bête noire, Osama bin Laden, the reputed “emir” and old “new Hitler” of the Afghan-Arab database of disposable Western intelligence assets known as al-Qaeda, Secrecy News reports an uptick in domestic spying.
Never mind that the administration is engaged in an unprecedented war on whistleblowers, or is systematically targeting antiwar and solidarity activists with trumped-up charges connected to the “material support of terrorism,” as last Fall’s multi-state raids on anarchists and socialists in Chicago and Minneapolis attest.
Continue reading “Secret State’s Domestic Spying on the Rise” »
by Alex Newman
The New American
As early as January of 2005, high-ranking officials were discussing the best way to sell the idea of North American “integration” to the public and policymakers while getting around national constitutions. The prospect of creating a monetary unit to replace national currencies was a hot topic as well.
Continue reading “WikiLeaks Exposes North American Integration Plot” »
ACLU seeks information on Michigan program that allows cops to download information from smart phones belonging to stopped motorists.
The Michigan State Police have a high-tech mobile forensics device that can be used to extract information from cell phones belonging to motorists stopped for minor traffic violations. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan last Wednesday demanded that state officials stop stonewalling freedom of information requests for information on the program.
Continue reading “Michigan: Police Search Cell Phones During Traffic Stops” »
by Jeremy Kirk
Macworld
Law enforcement organizations are making tens of thousands of requests for private electronic information from companies such as Sprint, Facebook and AOL, but few detailed statistics are available, according to a privacy researcher.
Police and other agencies have “enthusiastically embraced” asking for e-mail, instant messages and mobile-phone location data, but there’s no U.S. federal law that requires the reporting of requests for stored communications data, wrote Christopher Soghoian, a doctoral candidate at the School of Informatics and Computing at Indiana University, in a newly published paper.
Continue reading “Police Increasingly Peeping at E-mail & Instant Messages” »
By Glenn Greenwald
Salon
On December 15, when I first reported the inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning’s detention, I did not assign any blame to — or even mention — Barack Obama. Although, as Commander-in-Chief, Obama was technically responsible for Manning’s treatment, there was no evidence that he even knew about it, let alone planned it. But since then, the Manning controversy exploded into national prominence and Obama has explicitly defended the treatment, leaving no doubt that it directly reflects on who he is as a leader and a person.
Continue reading “Manning, Obama and U.S. Moral Leadership” »
